4 ms·

It's gotten to the point where it seems that the projects that do more of the Agile "stuff" move much slower because they're spending so much of the working tim

by bane 7y ago

It's gotten to the point where it seems that the projects that do more of the Agile "stuff" move much slower because they're spending so much of the working time doing that stuff than slinging code. Where I'm at, we're running something around 4 dozen projects at once and the teams that really focus on doing all the ceremonies are simply left in the dust by the teams that don't. Here's another anecdote, a couple big teams that went the full SAFe route spent 3 years building something that ended up being thrown away and replaced in 4 weeks by 3 staff working part-time who were just given some instructions, some deadlines, and told to go code. It's become repeatable, big teams toiling for years getting outpaced by smaller, more "agile", teams. The balance has gotten out of whack again and it's really time to start over again. When I go back and read the original manifesto, what I see today in modern practice looks nothing like what was intended. The point in too many shops has been to accomplish the Agile things, not to deliver.

jpswade 7y ago
In your anecdote, though I don't doubt the situation, it seems to me that something has gone wrong. The manifesto itself says: > Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale I get the impression as to what you're witnessing is, water-scrum-fall... See: https://i.imgur.com/6eqk7eF.png https://i.imgur.com/6eqk7eF.png On the flip-side, your team of renegades managed to deliver in 4 weeks, while being great, I would question how sustainable that is. Also I get the impression they had skin in the game. > what I see today in modern practice looks nothing like what was intended You're 100% right. I don't think it means agile should die, I think it means people have forgot what it set out to do. Scrum existed before agile and is a framework to help people work in an agile way. However people have got too wrapped up in the orthodoxy and have forgot what agile is actually about. My mantra is simple: Release early, release often, listen to the customer When I first got into software development it was because of open source software. On the SourceForge website, under the “Promoting your project” section, you’ll see it say “Release early, release often. Frequent releases state loudly that your project is alive”. Years later, I learned that this philosophy was popularised by Eric S. Raymond in his 1997 essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Only, his version also says “listen to the customer”, an important part that’s all too easy to forget.
- bane 7y ago
  > My mantra is simple: Release early, release often, listen to the customer I just wanted to amplify this simple, elegant, statement. I don't have anymore to add, but this is a better statement than the entire Agile industry has managed to produce.

by bane 7y ago

jpswade 7y ago

In your anecdote, though I don't doubt the situation, it seems to me that something has gone wrong. The manifesto itself says: > Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale I get the impression as to what you're witnessing is, water-scrum-fall... See: https://i.imgur.com/6eqk7eF.png https://i.imgur.com/6eqk7eF.png On the flip-side, your team of renegades managed to deliver in 4 weeks, while being great, I would question how sustainable that is. Also I get the impression they had skin in the game. > what I see today in modern practice looks nothing like what was intended You're 100% right. I don't think it means agile should die, I think it means people have forgot what it set out to do. Scrum existed before agile and is a framework to help people work in an agile way. However people have got too wrapped up in the orthodoxy and have forgot what agile is actually about. My mantra is simple: Release early, release often, listen to the customer When I first got into software development it was because of open source software. On the SourceForge website, under the “Promoting your project” section, you’ll see it say “Release early, release often. Frequent releases state loudly that your project is alive”. Years later, I learned that this philosophy was popularised by Eric S. Raymond in his 1997 essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Only, his version also says “listen to the customer”, an important part that’s all too easy to forget.

bane 7y ago
> My mantra is simple: Release early, release often, listen to the customer I just wanted to amplify this simple, elegant, statement. I don't have anymore to add, but this is a better statement than the entire Agile industry has managed to produce.