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The Agile manifesto is fatally flawed, though for rather different reasons than the ones typically given. Agile was started by software developers, and everyth

by yyyk 7y ago

The Agile manifesto is fatally flawed, though for rather different reasons than the ones typically given. Agile was started by software developers, and everything in the manifesto is very strongly tilted to how software developers do things and for bottom-to-top (or at least shallow) organizations devs like. However, every existing software company has much more of a top-to-bottom structure and is run by managers. They even have people who are not managers or developers! Every 'twisting' of Agile is a completely natural outgrowth of trying to fit Agile to how organizations are actually ran and how people who are not software devs need to do things. That exactly is 'true' Agile, because business as structured today cannot support any other Agile you might conceive of. That's why Kanban is so much more appreciated - it wasn't conceived in denial of how businesses are currently structured. P.S. The other option would be to built the business to support Agile and not the other way around. For better or worse, almost no existing company actually works that way and that's not going to change.

yyyk 7y ago
snarf21 posted elsewhere in this thread a perfect example. I'd like to refer to his Agile list as some other roles in the organization might see it. "Value individuals and interactions over processes and tools" Management - Processes and tools are exactly how we ran our business. It's the only way that scales (and is also lawsuit-proof!). "Value working software over comprehensive documentation" QA - How am I going to test that software if I don't have good documentation of what it needs to do and how it works? Documentation is necessary for working software, not something to be balance against working software. "Value customer collaboration over contract negotiation" Management - We do need to get paid you know. On that matter, our interests are not exactly aligned with the customer's. Furthermore, having clear expectations and legal protections for both sides is a form of collaboration, a necessary one in fact. "Value responding to change over following a plan" Investors - Ah, so you're just following the market and have no intention of initiating change on your own? How is your company going to be the next Apple if you keep up like that? I'm not necessarily saying the other characters are right - but these perspectives are a given in today's organization and are going to influence the actual process. Indeed, given that managers have more power, these are going to be the defining influences, way over some manifesto.

by yyyk 7y ago

yyyk 7y ago

snarf21 posted elsewhere in this thread a perfect example. I'd like to refer to his Agile list as some other roles in the organization might see it. "Value individuals and interactions over processes and tools" Management - Processes and tools are exactly how we ran our business. It's the only way that scales (and is also lawsuit-proof!). "Value working software over comprehensive documentation" QA - How am I going to test that software if I don't have good documentation of what it needs to do and how it works? Documentation is necessary for working software, not something to be balance against working software. "Value customer collaboration over contract negotiation" Management - We do need to get paid you know. On that matter, our interests are not exactly aligned with the customer's. Furthermore, having clear expectations and legal protections for both sides is a form of collaboration, a necessary one in fact. "Value responding to change over following a plan" Investors - Ah, so you're just following the market and have no intention of initiating change on your own? How is your company going to be the next Apple if you keep up like that? I'm not necessarily saying the other characters are right - but these perspectives are a given in today's organization and are going to influence the actual process. Indeed, given that managers have more power, these are going to be the defining influences, way over some manifesto.