5 ms·

But why does it seem to be the case for every organization? Not just ones I personally worked for, but I get the same reports from peers all over the US, in ve

But why does it seem to be the case for every organization? Not just ones I personally worked for, but I get the same reports from peers all over the US, in very different businesses.

jboy55 5y ago
Its not. I have worked at a bunch. But let me repeat, it's not the process, its the managers that enact the process. Shitty management is everywhere, even within the same company, you can have some managers understand and push to build great software and never look at stats, where other managers just want commits per engineer to be higher. If you ask them, they will say they are being 'fair' and 'objective'. So, some managers are only interested in making sure engineers aren't slacking off, they'll measure any way they can. LOC, Commits, Story points, it doesn't matter what, they want the measure, they want to be able to put you on a pip if that metric goes too low.
- g051051 5y ago
  > Its not. I have worked at a bunch. And yet consistently, everywhere I look, I see that "agile" simply doesn't work as described. Every article like this one treating "agile" as intrinsic truth is responded to by many who have seen first hand what a crock it is. The key observation for me is that, if you succeed with "agile", you would have succeeded as well or better without it. It's never why you were successful, but is often why projects fail. The best you can hope for is that it doesn't get in your way...hardly a ringing endorsement.
  - jboy55 5y ago
    > if you succeed with "agile", you would have succeeded as well or better without it. It's never why you were successful, but is often why projects fail. I would love to see some counter examples where companies succeeded writing business/application software using a well-defined process that wasn't 'Agile'. So please, let me know the counter example, what process is the alternative?
    - _y5hn 5y ago
      This is where the discussion turns silly, as agile/agility is not a process.
      - jboy55 5y ago
        Ok, Scrum, Extreme, Rational Unified are some processes with a degree of Agility. What are the alternatives?
        _y5hn 5y ago
        Projects of course. They don't have to adhere to some theoretical waterfall process, and anecdotally never have. There's Kanban, and any informal process a group of cross-functional people may come up with. In fact, it's much more important to make something that works, than copying some task-list because it's said to have worked somewhere else. Incidentally, and this is going to shake up the "Agile" world going forward, is the missing piece, the link to management (budgets and trust really!) and innovation (the creative spark!). That should be less about process, and much more about culture and learning. That has remained elusive and underappreciated. Google Design Sprint may be the closest "process", though will still depend more on the mentioned above. With a great team, it anyway depends on the people. Though, the experience and output also depends on who you ask. Which is why great teams may get split up, for good reasons but also bad reasons at the same time. Though try put the most brilliant people together. They will annoy eachother into oblivion. So it's about the art of building diverse teams and mixing with what's mentioned above, because nothing thrives in a vacuum.
        jboy55 5y ago
        I would call all that you described as Agile, sorry. > In fact, it's much more important to make something that works, than copying some task-list because it's said to have worked somewhere else. > That should be less about process, and much more about culture and learning That pretty much describes the manifesto. If you are saying regimented Scrum implemented by a rigid command hierarchy that assigns stories and demands story points per sprint. Well, those management hierarchies existed in the pre-scrum project world in spades, just as it exists now. Those management systems do not want to allow creative engineers, they want factory workers who they can measure the relative output and remove the lowest performers. They exist outside of any 'process' framework, or manifesto or the lack of one. What probably writers of the manifesto did not completely see, is these management structures signing up for their manifesto trainings, then turning around and doing what they always did.

But why does it seem to be the case for every organization? Not just ones I personally worked for, but I get the same reports from peers all over the US, in very different businesses.

jboy55 5y ago

Its not. I have worked at a bunch. But let me repeat, it's not the process, its the managers that enact the process. Shitty management is everywhere, even within the same company, you can have some managers understand and push to build great software and never look at stats, where other managers just want commits per engineer to be higher. If you ask them, they will say they are being 'fair' and 'objective'. So, some managers are only interested in making sure engineers aren't slacking off, they'll measure any way they can. LOC, Commits, Story points, it doesn't matter what, they want the measure, they want to be able to put you on a pip if that metric goes too low.

g051051 5y ago
> Its not. I have worked at a bunch. And yet consistently, everywhere I look, I see that "agile" simply doesn't work as described. Every article like this one treating "agile" as intrinsic truth is responded to by many who have seen first hand what a crock it is. The key observation for me is that, if you succeed with "agile", you would have succeeded as well or better without it. It's never why you were successful, but is often why projects fail. The best you can hope for is that it doesn't get in your way...hardly a ringing endorsement.
- jboy55 5y ago
  > if you succeed with "agile", you would have succeeded as well or better without it. It's never why you were successful, but is often why projects fail. I would love to see some counter examples where companies succeeded writing business/application software using a well-defined process that wasn't 'Agile'. So please, let me know the counter example, what process is the alternative?
  - _y5hn 5y ago
    This is where the discussion turns silly, as agile/agility is not a process.
    - jboy55 5y ago
      Ok, Scrum, Extreme, Rational Unified are some processes with a degree of Agility. What are the alternatives?
      - _y5hn 5y ago
        Projects of course. They don't have to adhere to some theoretical waterfall process, and anecdotally never have. There's Kanban, and any informal process a group of cross-functional people may come up with. In fact, it's much more important to make something that works, than copying some task-list because it's said to have worked somewhere else. Incidentally, and this is going to shake up the "Agile" world going forward, is the missing piece, the link to management (budgets and trust really!) and innovation (the creative spark!). That should be less about process, and much more about culture and learning. That has remained elusive and underappreciated. Google Design Sprint may be the closest "process", though will still depend more on the mentioned above. With a great team, it anyway depends on the people. Though, the experience and output also depends on who you ask. Which is why great teams may get split up, for good reasons but also bad reasons at the same time. Though try put the most brilliant people together. They will annoy eachother into oblivion. So it's about the art of building diverse teams and mixing with what's mentioned above, because nothing thrives in a vacuum.
        jboy55 5y ago
        I would call all that you described as Agile, sorry. > In fact, it's much more important to make something that works, than copying some task-list because it's said to have worked somewhere else. > That should be less about process, and much more about culture and learning That pretty much describes the manifesto. If you are saying regimented Scrum implemented by a rigid command hierarchy that assigns stories and demands story points per sprint. Well, those management hierarchies existed in the pre-scrum project world in spades, just as it exists now. Those management systems do not want to allow creative engineers, they want factory workers who they can measure the relative output and remove the lowest performers. They exist outside of any 'process' framework, or manifesto or the lack of one. What probably writers of the manifesto did not completely see, is these management structures signing up for their manifesto trainings, then turning around and doing what they always did.