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> You wouldn't use an agile methodology in construction, you waterfall the hell out of that. On the contrary, Mary Poppendieck has a wonderful presentation she
by mpyne 4y ago
> You wouldn't use an agile methodology in construction, you waterfall the hell out of that.
On the contrary, Mary Poppendieck has a wonderful presentation she gave on how the Empire State Building was built in record time by literally doing it as a more agile-style construction. https://chrisgagne.com/1255/mary-poppendiecks-the-tyranny-of-the-plan/ https://chrisgagne.com/1255/mary-poppendiecks-the-tyranny-of...
Likewise, American manufacturers by WWII had already gotten very good at building complicated machinery based on relatively light levels of blueprints and documentation, with the detail-level designs being added to the drawings used on the factory floor.
In many ways we have to blame the introduction of computerized project management for waterfall... it simply wouldn't have been workable before that to even attempt a real waterfall method for projects.
- eyelidlessness 4y agoI won’t wade into the intricacies of defining Waterfall or whether it has merit, but it definitely should be mentioned that Kanban—a capital A Agile technique which most capital A Agile advocates find unstructured and unpredictable (as in tends towards lowercase a agile)—was popularized by an auto manufacturer, where safety and liability are at least as much a concern as construction.
- user_named 4y agoKanban is a core but small part of TPS, it can't be said to be pro or against safety.
- mlyle 4y ago> > was popularized by an auto manufacturer, where safety and liability are at least as much a concern as construction. > Kanban is a core but small part of TPS, it can't be said to be pro or against safety. The poster's point is that it's not obviously defective from that standpoint, despite criticisms that imply that it is.
- eyelidlessness 4y agoAlmost exactly my point. There’s a fairly strong set of evidence that it’s safety-neutral at worst.
- mlyle 4y agoI love kanban. It's not perfectly suited for knowledge work, though. Great for smaller projects and for places where precise scoping and predictability is less important than just making progress.