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Three months ago I found myself writing a proposal for work that would take several times the budget that was available. A manager had an idea: why not do it 'a

Three months ago I found myself writing a proposal for work that would take several times the budget that was available. A manager had an idea: why not do it 'agile'? We would have two-week sprints, and at the end of each sprint a meeting with the customer to present work and define the direction of the next sprint. Great idea, right? So my next task, obviously, was to define the content of all the sprints and write them down in the proposal. I was well aware of the absurdity of the whole thing but did it anyway, carefully planning out what would be done in each sprint. Sure, it sounds stupid, but just look at how cute it is! It's like a whole bunch of little waterfalls! People pay good money to see such nice waterfalls, you know!

Jtsummers 5y ago
Last office had a team with 5-years of well planned out sprints. I could never dissuade them from the notion that this was "agile". They didn't use the end of each sprint to change direction if a problem was coming up, sticking to the plan for months after things started going wrong. Then they sat down and redid the next 4 years or so of sprints. Repeated after the next year. I guess it was more agile than making a 5-year plan and never changing it, but changing the plan annually is hardly responsive either.
- agent327 5y ago
  In my case, the proposal is contractually binding, so the contents of the sprints are fixed. Also, the customer won't be available during the period when the work takes place (holidays in Europe, you know), so they wouldn't be able to provide input anyway. Of course I'm assuming that they'll kick us off next week. Right now the project is in the "let's delay starting until missing the deadline is guaranteed" stage. One more week, and then my careful planning will have become officially impossible and it will be panic all around, and demands that I work days, nights, and weekends to make up for the delay they themselves caused. Do you want to guess who isn't allowed to go on holiday because of this incredibly urgent project? :-(

Jtsummers 5y ago

Last office had a team with 5-years of well planned out sprints. I could never dissuade them from the notion that this was "agile". They didn't use the end of each sprint to change direction if a problem was coming up, sticking to the plan for months after things started going wrong. Then they sat down and redid the next 4 years or so of sprints. Repeated after the next year. I guess it was more agile than making a 5-year plan and never changing it, but changing the plan annually is hardly responsive either.

agent327 5y ago
In my case, the proposal is contractually binding, so the contents of the sprints are fixed. Also, the customer won't be available during the period when the work takes place (holidays in Europe, you know), so they wouldn't be able to provide input anyway. Of course I'm assuming that they'll kick us off next week. Right now the project is in the "let's delay starting until missing the deadline is guaranteed" stage. One more week, and then my careful planning will have become officially impossible and it will be panic all around, and demands that I work days, nights, and weekends to make up for the delay they themselves caused. Do you want to guess who isn't allowed to go on holiday because of this incredibly urgent project? :-(