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Agile is like Communism. Sounds good in theory, but it's never actually been used successfully. And every time someone tells a story about it failing the apolog

Agile is like Communism. Sounds good in theory, but it's never actually been used successfully. And every time someone tells a story about it failing the apologists inevitably reply with, "but that wasn't real agile." I would suggest that if something is so hard to get right, then maybe it's not such a great methodology after all.

pyrale 5y ago
> I would suggest that if something is so hard to get right, then maybe it's not such a great methodology after all. Here is the thing, though: Agile is not a methodology. That's why, whenever people get sold a methodology and complain about it, they get the answer: > "but that wasn't real agile." As for why it's so common for people to buy "agile" from consultancies and end up with bad results, I would argue that "agile transformation" is a market for lemons [1]. It has been so for a decade now. For the interested people, I would suggest to learn about it by yourself from non-commercial sources, and to learn what you're talking about before contracting consultants. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
conradfr 5y ago
I think Scrum has sometimes its place for web agencies or the like, with external clients with deadlines and budgets. The mistake was applying it elsewhere.
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  Yeah that was a huge transition to make when working for an agency. Realizing that the bullshit work to communicate with the client while technically slowing the whole project down was the most important task you had. Reason being, the "product" wasn't really the code you were developing for the client, it was delivering client happiness, and often they cared more about being in the loop than getting the maximal amount of functionality.
- jseban 5y ago
  Yeah this is how I always felt about Scrum, that it's made for IT consulting firms to manage the relationship with the client, and that the "product owner" is in the clients organisation, and scrum master works in the consulting firm, so it's a tool to negotiate and manage expectations for delivery.

pyrale 5y ago

> I would suggest that if something is so hard to get right, then maybe it's not such a great methodology after all. Here is the thing, though: Agile is not a methodology. That's why, whenever people get sold a methodology and complain about it, they get the answer: > "but that wasn't real agile." As for why it's so common for people to buy "agile" from consultancies and end up with bad results, I would argue that "agile transformation" is a market for lemons [1]. It has been so for a decade now. For the interested people, I would suggest to learn about it by yourself from non-commercial sources, and to learn what you're talking about before contracting consultants. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

conradfr 5y ago

I think Scrum has sometimes its place for web agencies or the like, with external clients with deadlines and budgets. The mistake was applying it elsewhere.

blacktriangle 5y ago
Yeah that was a huge transition to make when working for an agency. Realizing that the bullshit work to communicate with the client while technically slowing the whole project down was the most important task you had. Reason being, the "product" wasn't really the code you were developing for the client, it was delivering client happiness, and often they cared more about being in the loop than getting the maximal amount of functionality.
jseban 5y ago
Yeah this is how I always felt about Scrum, that it's made for IT consulting firms to manage the relationship with the client, and that the "product owner" is in the clients organisation, and scrum master works in the consulting firm, so it's a tool to negotiate and manage expectations for delivery.