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> And yet what I'm hearing so much is the Agile Industrial Complex imposing methods upon people, and that to me is an absolute travesty. I find it depressing t

> And yet what I'm hearing so much is the Agile Industrial Complex imposing methods upon people, and that to me is an absolute travesty. I find it depressing that Fowler sees the same problem I do. I have yet to find a shop that practices “agile” in a way that's actually consistent with the Agile Manifesto. What I've been seeing instead was micromanagement and cargo cult. All power to make decisions lies with management and if there are developers involved at all, it's the top one or two who are de facto part of management.

johan_larson 8y ago
Agile methods do have a bit of a problem with the concept of authority. They really really want to believe that at least within a development team, everyone is equal. That's not a great fit to actual dev teams in companies where there are junior devs, senior devs, architects, and managers.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  I'm thinking they make an effort to accommodate that. The poker idea is to average out the team's estimates which is shown to come to a reasonable number (adding up noisy signals equals a better signal). And the whole scrum thing is explicitly to let mentoring happen organically
- pjc50 8y ago
  In my experience the power structure within the team is fairly flat, it's the managers outside the team that insist on having authority, micromanagement and veto rights over things they don't understand.
- conradfr 8y ago
  A senior dev in an Scrum team is supposed to do the same work as the junior, except faster! Then they'll wonder why the experienced people quit.
  - detaro 8y ago
    > A senior dev in an Scrum team is supposed to do the same work as the junior, except faster! Where do Scrum principles/rules/... say that? (I have only passing familarity with, but I haven't seen much that went into more detail than "the development team organizes itself to complete the tasks", which leaves the internal structure open)
    - conradfr 8y ago
      It's just my experience at multiple companies doing Scrum.
JoeAltmaier 8y ago
I agree, seen the same things. Some manager inserts themselves into the scrum etc and guides the conversation until they're micromanaging again.
- ilikerashers 8y ago
  I've seen the converse. "Empowered" teams arguing relentlessly with each other and other teams. It comes down to individuals regardless of what the methodology-du-jour is. Martin seems to think all we need is better tech skills.
  - jwl 8y ago
    At the end of the day, every team still needs at least one senior team lead who can decide "we do it like this" and move on. Or else you get stuck forever in which db technology is the right choice for the project.
altras 8y ago
shameless self promotion: I don't know if we practice "Agile Manifesto" or not but with our current flow[1] of collaboration and partnership we're pretty agile and able to respond to business reality within hours. Sometimes it's minutes depending on the complexity of the required "pivot" / refactoring. edit: also the team has no hierarchy and information silos. This trust builds a good rhythm. I'm also trying to find and collaborate with a team which can do the same. [1] http://tales.camplight.net/post/169889253916/how-we-develop-client-projects http://tales.camplight.net/post/169889253916/how-we-develop-...

johan_larson 8y ago

Agile methods do have a bit of a problem with the concept of authority. They really really want to believe that at least within a development team, everyone is equal. That's not a great fit to actual dev teams in companies where there are junior devs, senior devs, architects, and managers.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
I'm thinking they make an effort to accommodate that. The poker idea is to average out the team's estimates which is shown to come to a reasonable number (adding up noisy signals equals a better signal). And the whole scrum thing is explicitly to let mentoring happen organically
pjc50 8y ago
In my experience the power structure within the team is fairly flat, it's the managers outside the team that insist on having authority, micromanagement and veto rights over things they don't understand.
conradfr 8y ago
A senior dev in an Scrum team is supposed to do the same work as the junior, except faster! Then they'll wonder why the experienced people quit.
- detaro 8y ago
  > A senior dev in an Scrum team is supposed to do the same work as the junior, except faster! Where do Scrum principles/rules/... say that? (I have only passing familarity with, but I haven't seen much that went into more detail than "the development team organizes itself to complete the tasks", which leaves the internal structure open)
  - conradfr 8y ago
    It's just my experience at multiple companies doing Scrum.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago

I agree, seen the same things. Some manager inserts themselves into the scrum etc and guides the conversation until they're micromanaging again.

ilikerashers 8y ago
I've seen the converse. "Empowered" teams arguing relentlessly with each other and other teams. It comes down to individuals regardless of what the methodology-du-jour is. Martin seems to think all we need is better tech skills.
- jwl 8y ago
  At the end of the day, every team still needs at least one senior team lead who can decide "we do it like this" and move on. Or else you get stuck forever in which db technology is the right choice for the project.

altras 8y ago

shameless self promotion: I don't know if we practice "Agile Manifesto" or not but with our current flow[1] of collaboration and partnership we're pretty agile and able to respond to business reality within hours. Sometimes it's minutes depending on the complexity of the required "pivot" / refactoring. edit: also the team has no hierarchy and information silos. This trust builds a good rhythm. I'm also trying to find and collaborate with a team which can do the same. [1] http://tales.camplight.net/post/169889253916/how-we-develop-client-projects http://tales.camplight.net/post/169889253916/how-we-develop-...