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Agile has become overused and cliched. My sister works as a project manager at one of the big UK banks. They are anything but agile--projects take months and h

Agile has become overused and cliched. My sister works as a project manager at one of the big UK banks. They are anything but agile--projects take months and have to be planned out to the smallest detail for legal and compliance reasons. Makes sense, as the smallest decision affects millions of people, and there are regulations to satisfy. She complains she now has to do daily standups with other project managers. But she has no idea what they do, they have no idea what she does, and it's a matter of just talking "Yeah, doing the same thing I was doing yesterday". But since there are like 20 managers in just her group, this takes an hour everyday. And she's like--we're not in software, why are they forcing this scrum thing on us? I tried to tell her about the Priesthood the Agile, the Saviours of Our Codes, bless them, the Agile Manifesto Priests, but decided it would be too much history, so I just nodded and said "meh".

iratewizard 5y ago
I get that waterfall has a bad reputation, but complex, heavily regulated systems are where waterfall projects shine.
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  That’s been my world. And no, it doesn’t shine. It’s the worst way to manage a complex project that anyone has conceived of short of anarchic project management with no plans and no deliberate coordination. Waterfall is a great way to fuck up a complex system. It is unresponsive to change. The smallest ambiguity will result in the undesirable outcome of building the wrong thing. The only good thing about Waterfall is that contractors can make bank on the rework, but their customers will be screwed every time.
  - greesil 5y ago
    So it's better than anarchy? Admittedly it's a low bar to clear, but what would you propose as better?
    - feoren 5y ago
      A small team of smart people all working together with a shared goal, a clear vision, flexible roles, open communication with subject-matter experts, and a manager who acts as a shield against external forces (obsessive changes, design by committee) and as a provisioner of resources to the team?
      - mmarq 5y ago
        Amen
    - cjfd 5y ago
      Not much planning. Direct contact with the people who use the software. Good coding practices, preferably TDD. No time pressure. This is pretty much agile how it should be in theory but not in practice. Agile in theory is actually a very good development process. Agile in practice tends to be a bit worse. Waterfall always is the hell. My boyfriend is at the moment doing waterfall development. He hates it. So much useless paperwork.
      - aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
        Yeah, that’s fine for developing the new landing page for the company website. Not so much for developing mission critical systems.
        cjfd 5y ago
        I disagree. Among the things that I listed was TDD. If one practices that consistently one can create highly reliable software. In fact one might argue that using TDD for the new landing page for the company website might be overkill. Maybe you do need a bit more planning for your 'mission critical system' in order to perhaps attain performance goals. However, I will tell you here and now that if you just do TDD for your mission critical system and you do it well you will already be better than most programming going on for so-called missions critical systems in many, many places.
- shantnutiwari 5y ago
  yeah, waterfall has its uses. It's not the evil puppy killer everyone makes it out to be
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  I can see why waterfall doesn't work, but as a dev, it is pretty nice to have a detailed spec. Covers my ass.
  - jrochkind1 5y ago
    Waterfall is indeed the domain of valuing covering your ass over producing business value.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - tomosaki 5y ago
    I think more teams need to learn to do better documentation and specs with Agile. So many teams think that it’s just not needed.
- oxfordmale 5y ago
  The problem is that waterfall is a myth propagated by the Agile evangelists. Development waterfalls were not frozen and rigid as claimed by Agile advocates, but we're in fact fluid allowing certain steps to start before others were finished.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Everywhere I've seen it management had the expectation that the requirements were frozen, that the project would be on time and costs were fixed.
    - oxfordmale 5y ago
      This gives a good historical overview: http://www.bawiki.com/wiki/Waterfall.html http://www.bawiki.com/wiki/Waterfall.html Wikipedia gives a shorter version: In fact Royce, known for his 1970 paper from which the Waterfall model for software development was mistakenly drawn, demonstrated that while the development of large software systems required a more thorough approach, there was inherent risk in a single-pass sequential approach. He proposed an iterative approach and advocated that projects should pass through this at least twice.
meheleventyone 5y ago
It's everywhere now as a management fad. My Aunt works for the Environment Agency and has been 'agile' for a few years. The mind boggles.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
social_quotient 5y ago
Without know any details I can easily say 20 managers in a room for an hour giving updates is for sure not “agile”. It also contributes to a lot of the other examples in this convo chain. Bad agile is bad. Just like bad waterfall is bad. A key tenant to agile is the reduction of inefficient processes. So in the next retrospective I would nominate that there are no longer weekly 20 person meetings.
- twic 5y ago
  On the other hand, that's an hour during which none of those managers are bothering programmers.
  - social_quotient 5y ago
    True and believe me I get the point… but the scrum master job is supposed to play defense so people don’t bother the dev team.
- jcims 5y ago
  It just sounds like a scrum of scrums on a tricky project. I'm on a major project now where there are 80-90 people across around a dozen workstreams trying to stay coordinated on a fast moving project in a highly regulated industry. We usually wrap in 20-30 mins but it has definitely taken hour in the past just due to the sheer number of interdependencies and hard gates.
  - social_quotient 5y ago
    20-30 sounds reasonable. And should more in the weeds discussion be needed it should become the source of specific follow ups. It’s the standing 1 hour meeting where some people leave thinking it’s a waste of time. The waste is what agile is about, or not about. If it’s productive, needed, or even just healthy then it’s appropriate IMO. Thx for sharing.
- emperorcezar 5y ago
  Ah yes. They are no true Scotsman.
mbrodersen 5y ago
That’s great! The more time managers don’t interrupt developers the better. Suggest that they extend the standups to 2 hours a day. It will make the developers even more productive (I am only half joking).

iratewizard 5y ago

I get that waterfall has a bad reputation, but complex, heavily regulated systems are where waterfall projects shine.

Jtsummers 5y ago
That’s been my world. And no, it doesn’t shine. It’s the worst way to manage a complex project that anyone has conceived of short of anarchic project management with no plans and no deliberate coordination. Waterfall is a great way to fuck up a complex system. It is unresponsive to change. The smallest ambiguity will result in the undesirable outcome of building the wrong thing. The only good thing about Waterfall is that contractors can make bank on the rework, but their customers will be screwed every time.
- greesil 5y ago
  So it's better than anarchy? Admittedly it's a low bar to clear, but what would you propose as better?
  - feoren 5y ago
    A small team of smart people all working together with a shared goal, a clear vision, flexible roles, open communication with subject-matter experts, and a manager who acts as a shield against external forces (obsessive changes, design by committee) and as a provisioner of resources to the team?
    - mmarq 5y ago
      Amen
  - cjfd 5y ago
    Not much planning. Direct contact with the people who use the software. Good coding practices, preferably TDD. No time pressure. This is pretty much agile how it should be in theory but not in practice. Agile in theory is actually a very good development process. Agile in practice tends to be a bit worse. Waterfall always is the hell. My boyfriend is at the moment doing waterfall development. He hates it. So much useless paperwork.
    - aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
      Yeah, that’s fine for developing the new landing page for the company website. Not so much for developing mission critical systems.
      - cjfd 5y ago
        I disagree. Among the things that I listed was TDD. If one practices that consistently one can create highly reliable software. In fact one might argue that using TDD for the new landing page for the company website might be overkill. Maybe you do need a bit more planning for your 'mission critical system' in order to perhaps attain performance goals. However, I will tell you here and now that if you just do TDD for your mission critical system and you do it well you will already be better than most programming going on for so-called missions critical systems in many, many places.
shantnutiwari 5y ago
yeah, waterfall has its uses. It's not the evil puppy killer everyone makes it out to be
MattGaiser 5y ago
I can see why waterfall doesn't work, but as a dev, it is pretty nice to have a detailed spec. Covers my ass.
- jrochkind1 5y ago
  Waterfall is indeed the domain of valuing covering your ass over producing business value.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- tomosaki 5y ago
  I think more teams need to learn to do better documentation and specs with Agile. So many teams think that it’s just not needed.
oxfordmale 5y ago
The problem is that waterfall is a myth propagated by the Agile evangelists. Development waterfalls were not frozen and rigid as claimed by Agile advocates, but we're in fact fluid allowing certain steps to start before others were finished.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Everywhere I've seen it management had the expectation that the requirements were frozen, that the project would be on time and costs were fixed.
  - oxfordmale 5y ago
    This gives a good historical overview: http://www.bawiki.com/wiki/Waterfall.html http://www.bawiki.com/wiki/Waterfall.html Wikipedia gives a shorter version: In fact Royce, known for his 1970 paper from which the Waterfall model for software development was mistakenly drawn, demonstrated that while the development of large software systems required a more thorough approach, there was inherent risk in a single-pass sequential approach. He proposed an iterative approach and advocated that projects should pass through this at least twice.

meheleventyone 5y ago

It's everywhere now as a management fad. My Aunt works for the Environment Agency and has been 'agile' for a few years. The mind boggles.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

social_quotient 5y ago

Without know any details I can easily say 20 managers in a room for an hour giving updates is for sure not “agile”. It also contributes to a lot of the other examples in this convo chain. Bad agile is bad. Just like bad waterfall is bad. A key tenant to agile is the reduction of inefficient processes. So in the next retrospective I would nominate that there are no longer weekly 20 person meetings.

twic 5y ago
On the other hand, that's an hour during which none of those managers are bothering programmers.
- social_quotient 5y ago
  True and believe me I get the point… but the scrum master job is supposed to play defense so people don’t bother the dev team.
jcims 5y ago
It just sounds like a scrum of scrums on a tricky project. I'm on a major project now where there are 80-90 people across around a dozen workstreams trying to stay coordinated on a fast moving project in a highly regulated industry. We usually wrap in 20-30 mins but it has definitely taken hour in the past just due to the sheer number of interdependencies and hard gates.
- social_quotient 5y ago
  20-30 sounds reasonable. And should more in the weeds discussion be needed it should become the source of specific follow ups. It’s the standing 1 hour meeting where some people leave thinking it’s a waste of time. The waste is what agile is about, or not about. If it’s productive, needed, or even just healthy then it’s appropriate IMO. Thx for sharing.
emperorcezar 5y ago
Ah yes. They are no true Scotsman.

mbrodersen 5y ago

That’s great! The more time managers don’t interrupt developers the better. Suggest that they extend the standups to 2 hours a day. It will make the developers even more productive (I am only half joking).