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yes, in the early days of agile processes the term "brain engaged" came up a lot when it comes to practices. You have to understand the purpose of things. ove

yes, in the early days of agile processes the term "brain engaged" came up a lot when it comes to practices. You have to understand the purpose of things. overworking is not agile, one of the 12 principles "Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely. " but what you are saying is the common case of "let's do agile so we can get the software we want when we want". and then, commonly, that is "a scrum like planning process" and buzz words like CI and tests.... but it's just not agile. It's why you feel like you have no power, it's agile practices used in non agile ways. From my experience, ~90% of time is spent on technical excellence, 10% is the broader process, and the broader process get's tweaked regularly to adapt to changing circumstance

pdimitar 9y ago
> It's why you feel like you have no power, it's agile practices used in non agile ways. Yes and no. Yes, because almost nobody really follows an agile process -- the original manifesto seems to be lost on almost everybody in the area. No, because I feel I have no power because nobody wants me to make decisions that even the slightest business implications. This is wrong on many levels. I'll be the first to agree many programmers are naive as cocker-spaniels and only think of the technicalities and never of the real world -- sadly that's true enough. Those of us with a wider culture however can make huge impact, and we're denied the possibility because of prejudiced cretins in suits who actually have much less culture in different areas of life compared to us. > From my experience, ~90% of time is spent on technical excellence, 10% is the broader process, and the broader process get's tweaked regularly to adapt to changing circumstance. Nasty stereotyping, unless I am reading your text wrong. What I and many others have as daily reality (happily I parted ways with such employers but many others haven't yet) is: - 40% of the time is spent in meaningless meetings: sprint starts, pointless bickering in status meetings, discussing a task for a longer time than it would take me to code a prototype half-asleep, personal vendettas concealed as coding style wars -- you name it, it's all there. - 20% of the time is spent in documenting things you simply don't know right now. You're paid to spend 20% of your time as a fiction writer. - 20% of the time is spent in actually coding. If you don't get interrupted 5 times an hour, count yourself lucky. - 20% of the time is spent in "retrospects", mini-meetings, mid-sprint priority re-adjustments and the "Scrum master" trying to act like a big daddy to everyone while full-well knowing he can't influence his boss' opinion on when the final shipping date should be.

pdimitar 9y ago

> It's why you feel like you have no power, it's agile practices used in non agile ways. Yes and no. Yes, because almost nobody really follows an agile process -- the original manifesto seems to be lost on almost everybody in the area. No, because I feel I have no power because nobody wants me to make decisions that even the slightest business implications. This is wrong on many levels. I'll be the first to agree many programmers are naive as cocker-spaniels and only think of the technicalities and never of the real world -- sadly that's true enough. Those of us with a wider culture however can make huge impact, and we're denied the possibility because of prejudiced cretins in suits who actually have much less culture in different areas of life compared to us. > From my experience, ~90% of time is spent on technical excellence, 10% is the broader process, and the broader process get's tweaked regularly to adapt to changing circumstance. Nasty stereotyping, unless I am reading your text wrong. What I and many others have as daily reality (happily I parted ways with such employers but many others haven't yet) is: - 40% of the time is spent in meaningless meetings: sprint starts, pointless bickering in status meetings, discussing a task for a longer time than it would take me to code a prototype half-asleep, personal vendettas concealed as coding style wars -- you name it, it's all there. - 20% of the time is spent in documenting things you simply don't know right now. You're paid to spend 20% of your time as a fiction writer. - 20% of the time is spent in actually coding. If you don't get interrupted 5 times an hour, count yourself lucky. - 20% of the time is spent in "retrospects", mini-meetings, mid-sprint priority re-adjustments and the "Scrum master" trying to act like a big daddy to everyone while full-well knowing he can't influence his boss' opinion on when the final shipping date should be.