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That's a good idea. Consulting firms have really overcomplicated Agile a lot. I've been displeased to meet bloated implementations these last years. My only po

by myth2018 8y ago

That's a good idea. Consulting firms have really overcomplicated Agile a lot. I've been displeased to meet bloated implementations these last years. My only point is that, at least in the companies I've worked for so far, a practical Agile implementation must provide some device for making a "pressure" over the team to avoid too many items ending up carried to next sprint. Of course there are lots of legitimate situations where an item doesn't fit in the sprint and this should be acknowledged, providing inputs for the estimation of the next sprint and making those estimations more accurate. However, in my opinion, it should also be clear to everyone that those slippages have consequences and everybody should be employing their best efforts. I don't consider this a deficiency in the article though, since Agile in itself seems to be optimistic about teams by its very nature. I believe this is going to get me some downvotes, but this is unfortunately the reality I live in and if I were going to devise an Agile implementation for my team I would take this into account.

ajmurmann 8y ago
Sorry, there is no "faster" button. The only lever you have is cutting scope as you go. Fixed scope just makes no sense. Otherwise you get one of three outcomes: 1. We underestimated how much we can get done. People now start gold playing stuff and wasting time that would be better spent on future backlog items. 2. You estimated just right and are done Friday at 5pm. Obviously this doesn't happen frequently. 3. You overestimate and now something's gotta give. People will start cutting corners or putting in over hours as a punishment for being bad at estimation. This is not sustainable. We need to get away from the fixed scope mentality with which Scrum had poisened the Agile pool. If we cannot trust or developers to do the best work they can and wanting to be proud of their work, the organization has entirely different problems.
- myth2018 8y ago
  Experience shows that this is not the way things work. Real-world team members present varying levels of maturity and, therefore, commitment levels to the aimed results. Some will work at their natural pace and deliver the thing, provided the estimates were accurate; some will relax and leverage the fact that it's always OK to say that there was not enough time; some will work hard at the beginning and get contaminated over time; and so on. It is sad to work without a 100% mutual trust, but we have to be realistic. Building trust takes time.
fukbezos 8y ago
"pressure" aka micro management

ajmurmann 8y ago

Sorry, there is no "faster" button. The only lever you have is cutting scope as you go. Fixed scope just makes no sense. Otherwise you get one of three outcomes: 1. We underestimated how much we can get done. People now start gold playing stuff and wasting time that would be better spent on future backlog items. 2. You estimated just right and are done Friday at 5pm. Obviously this doesn't happen frequently. 3. You overestimate and now something's gotta give. People will start cutting corners or putting in over hours as a punishment for being bad at estimation. This is not sustainable. We need to get away from the fixed scope mentality with which Scrum had poisened the Agile pool. If we cannot trust or developers to do the best work they can and wanting to be proud of their work, the organization has entirely different problems.

myth2018 8y ago
Experience shows that this is not the way things work. Real-world team members present varying levels of maturity and, therefore, commitment levels to the aimed results. Some will work at their natural pace and deliver the thing, provided the estimates were accurate; some will relax and leverage the fact that it's always OK to say that there was not enough time; some will work hard at the beginning and get contaminated over time; and so on. It is sad to work without a 100% mutual trust, but we have to be realistic. Building trust takes time.

fukbezos 8y ago

"pressure" aka micro management