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Agile wasn't supposed to solve big problems of software development, like how efficiency scales down as you add more developers or why it's hard to predict how
by smegel 9y ago
Agile wasn't supposed to solve big problems of software development, like how efficiency scales down as you add more developers or why it's hard to predict how long it will take to deliver X.
Agile is about understanding why these difficulties exist in the first place by realizing the human aspects of software development, and provide an alternate model for software delivery that is based on a pragmatic understanding of the complexity of humans and of software.
It's more about realistic expectation calibration and compassionate project management than turning developers into highly predictable and efficient machines, which sounds a lot more like the folly of waterfall development with fixed goalposts set years in advance.
The problem is all the wrong people have jumped on Agile and are trying to use it to "solve" a perceived problem rather than using it to better understand the human condition and taking a more pragmatic and compassionate approach - yes with accepting "we dont know" is a valid answer to a lot of questions.
The core point of Agile has been lost, because the people now riding it to death never understood it in the first place.
- fsloth 9y agoConsultants selling shiny toys which may or may not be snake oil is nothing new. Consultants want products and services to sell. This probably causes some dissonance, as agile works only if the team and company takes owenrship of the process. If they try to buy the process from outside it's like planning to start exercising by first buying new shoes - it seldom works.
- bsaul 9y agoIt’s funny reading your post : I’ve only known one really senior agile specialist, and he too put a tremendous emphasis on the human benevolence aspect, saying it’s the core of agile. My experience with him really made me understand what agile is all about, and care less about the tools and more about keeping the original intent. That was transformative.
- _pmf_ 9y agoAgile is the self-fulfilling truism that small, focused teams with a cooperative customer can create good software. If you create software in a contractually or regulatory heavyweight setting and are "doing agile", you're fooling yourself[0]. But people like cargo cults, so we should let them have their fun. [0] For additional fun, we've had projects with 200 page of nonnegotiable specification that the customer wanted "to be done agile" (but any deviation from specification had contractual penalties attached).