5 ms·

Devs LOVE Agile, the ideas behind Agile and the agility itself. What devs hate is cargo cults. When management slaps "agile" sticker on your team while having

Devs LOVE Agile, the ideas behind Agile and the agility itself. What devs hate is cargo cults. When management slaps "agile" sticker on your team while having no clue what Agile is about, it's called deception, misrepresentation, misinformation, and exactly what people usually "hate". You direct your disappointment towards wrongly placed label, not Agile. Hate your incompetent management instead.

crimsonalucard 7y ago
I hate agile. And I'm a dev. This is not a matter of hating the wrong thing or not knowing what agile is. I literally hate agile, i think the definition of agile is loaded. I propose a new form of project management called "Relativity." The definition of relativity based project management is effectiveness. If something is not effective don't do it, if something is effective do it. Wait aren't devs doing this anyway? Is putting a fancy word on top of this obvious concept pure BS? Is this what agile is doing? No it can't be BS. Not when people can take a class for it. Once a class is made for "Relativity based project management" you know it's no longer BS.
- mindcrime 7y ago
  So which principles from the Agile Manifesto do you disagree with, exactly? And what is the alternative that you would prefer?
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    I'm gonna name a new process of walking, but not just walking... effective walking where you avoid obstacles. I'm going to give it a fancy name and call it "Quantum movement." It's different from regular walking as Quantum movement adapts to terrain and avoids obstacles where the priorities of the person who is walking are satisfied. Agile is the same concept as above. It's different from regular development as it's trying to satisfy the customer.
  - alkonaut 7y ago
    One alternative I prefer: not specifying any deliverables or deadlines at all. It’s just that mangers often have a hard time selling that to stakeholders. But if you can be in that process, it’s fantastic. That is “our product is great, but it’s going to be outdated in 10 years, so we’ll put you 5 devs in a room to try to build the Next Big Thing”. I did that and it was great.
    - username90 7y ago
      Sounds like my job, seems to work at Google at least.
    - kthejoker2 7y ago
      Yeah, a process like this is applicable to maybe 5% of development projects out there, and is definitely not ripe for abuse by all and sundry in the other 95%. Demonstrate you're producing valuable work on a regular, fixed cadence. Use whateve process you want to do so. The hard part is defining value somewhere below "the whole project is done." Harder than it sounds, people get it wrong all the time, astoundingly so, almost to the point where I'm convinced it's some sort of evolutionary defect.
      - alkonaut 7y ago
        Completely agree. But here is the thing: as a developer I'm probably going to dislike any process that management and stakeholders agree is viable. It's not that I expect to find myself in any kind of non-viable process, but I also don't expect to not dislike it.
    - yoz-y 7y ago
      That is a great way to do software if you have unlimited money. This can be achieved either by working on something that does not yet have any stakeholders and get income from elsewhere or by working at a huge company that has time to spare. If you want to create a company that is profitable, you absolutely must have a deadline for shipping something. If you don’t decide one yourself then your bank account will do it for you.
quanticle 7y ago
One of the problems with "agile" is that no one has a clear idea of what Agile is. Day-to-day, what does an "agile" team do? As a dev, I've encountered many software development methodologies that lay claim to the term "agile". I've hated every single one of them. At what point do I get to say, "Actually, no, it's the idea that's the problem not the implementations"
brianwawok 7y ago
I am a dev, I also don't care about agile. I am neutral to slight dislike towards it. If I see someone talking about it, it usually means it is the kind of place I don't want to work.
gwbas1c 7y ago
I think you captured my post better, so I'm just doing it as a reply: --- "Agile" is like "xml" (or JSON.) Just following a process, or using a technology, doesn't mean you'll do it right. I'm sure plenty of us have come across hair-brained xml, or JSON, that looks like it was designed by a moron. The same can be said for "Agile." Just because a group tries to follow it, doesn't mean that they follow it correctly or manage themselves the best way. I'd also like to point out: All of the quote in the article could equally apply to waterfall, or any other software management model.
brodouevencode 7y ago
I agree with this sentiment. As the author said, agile was invented by programmers for programmers but somewhere along the way the army of scrum-certified project managers hijacked it and turned it into something we (or at least I) despise. The worst part of it: the box-checking. The incessant, never-ending, "was this and this and this and this and this ceremony done", all of which provided no value to the product.

crimsonalucard 7y ago

I hate agile. And I'm a dev. This is not a matter of hating the wrong thing or not knowing what agile is. I literally hate agile, i think the definition of agile is loaded. I propose a new form of project management called "Relativity." The definition of relativity based project management is effectiveness. If something is not effective don't do it, if something is effective do it. Wait aren't devs doing this anyway? Is putting a fancy word on top of this obvious concept pure BS? Is this what agile is doing? No it can't be BS. Not when people can take a class for it. Once a class is made for "Relativity based project management" you know it's no longer BS.

mindcrime 7y ago
So which principles from the Agile Manifesto do you disagree with, exactly? And what is the alternative that you would prefer?
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  I'm gonna name a new process of walking, but not just walking... effective walking where you avoid obstacles. I'm going to give it a fancy name and call it "Quantum movement." It's different from regular walking as Quantum movement adapts to terrain and avoids obstacles where the priorities of the person who is walking are satisfied. Agile is the same concept as above. It's different from regular development as it's trying to satisfy the customer.
- alkonaut 7y ago
  One alternative I prefer: not specifying any deliverables or deadlines at all. It’s just that mangers often have a hard time selling that to stakeholders. But if you can be in that process, it’s fantastic. That is “our product is great, but it’s going to be outdated in 10 years, so we’ll put you 5 devs in a room to try to build the Next Big Thing”. I did that and it was great.
  - username90 7y ago
    Sounds like my job, seems to work at Google at least.
  - kthejoker2 7y ago
    Yeah, a process like this is applicable to maybe 5% of development projects out there, and is definitely not ripe for abuse by all and sundry in the other 95%. Demonstrate you're producing valuable work on a regular, fixed cadence. Use whateve process you want to do so. The hard part is defining value somewhere below "the whole project is done." Harder than it sounds, people get it wrong all the time, astoundingly so, almost to the point where I'm convinced it's some sort of evolutionary defect.
    - alkonaut 7y ago
      Completely agree. But here is the thing: as a developer I'm probably going to dislike any process that management and stakeholders agree is viable. It's not that I expect to find myself in any kind of non-viable process, but I also don't expect to not dislike it.
  - yoz-y 7y ago
    That is a great way to do software if you have unlimited money. This can be achieved either by working on something that does not yet have any stakeholders and get income from elsewhere or by working at a huge company that has time to spare. If you want to create a company that is profitable, you absolutely must have a deadline for shipping something. If you don’t decide one yourself then your bank account will do it for you.

quanticle 7y ago

One of the problems with "agile" is that no one has a clear idea of what Agile is. Day-to-day, what does an "agile" team do? As a dev, I've encountered many software development methodologies that lay claim to the term "agile". I've hated every single one of them. At what point do I get to say, "Actually, no, it's the idea that's the problem not the implementations"

brianwawok 7y ago

I am a dev, I also don't care about agile. I am neutral to slight dislike towards it. If I see someone talking about it, it usually means it is the kind of place I don't want to work.

gwbas1c 7y ago

I think you captured my post better, so I'm just doing it as a reply: --- "Agile" is like "xml" (or JSON.) Just following a process, or using a technology, doesn't mean you'll do it right. I'm sure plenty of us have come across hair-brained xml, or JSON, that looks like it was designed by a moron. The same can be said for "Agile." Just because a group tries to follow it, doesn't mean that they follow it correctly or manage themselves the best way. I'd also like to point out: All of the quote in the article could equally apply to waterfall, or any other software management model.

brodouevencode 7y ago

I agree with this sentiment. As the author said, agile was invented by programmers for programmers but somewhere along the way the army of scrum-certified project managers hijacked it and turned it into something we (or at least I) despise. The worst part of it: the box-checking. The incessant, never-ending, "was this and this and this and this and this ceremony done", all of which provided no value to the product.