4 ms·

I have a question to non-agile people? How do you work and get things done?

onethought 4y ago
What do you mean by the question? Non-agile people? You mean people that don’t do scrum? Or do you want someone to step forward and say: “I’m really rigid and refuse to change direction once I start, this is how I get things done…” If you mean no scrum, simple, no card wall, tasks are epics, trust people to know what to do and let them do it. Help people when needed.
- keyraycheck 4y ago
  I would love to know how people work. I wonder what is the alternative. The board is far from only agile practice and nit obligatory either. Even Epic sounds like an agile term.
  - eesmith 4y ago
    The problem I have with your question is "agile" seems to mean anything except a pure waterfall development model. Even modified waterfall seems to be described as agile. As a sole developer of a software product, I haven't figured out how the agile principles even apply to me. "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools" doesn't work when there's only one person. "Working software over comprehensive documentation" Does that mean ship code but don't provide comprehensive documentation to my users? No, it means internal process documentation. Which isn't applicable since it's just me. "Customer collaboration over contract negotiation". That only applies for contract software development. I sell a software product. "Responding to change over following a plan". I don't have much of a plan, so I guess I do this one. But I do have a long-term vision, since that's essential to figuring out what groundwork to have. Personally, I learned RAD (rapid application development) when I was a young programmer back in the 1990s, and that's what I still use.
    - eurasiantiger 4y ago
      You, the developer, have one customer: you, the software vendor. The software vendor sells a software product, not the developer.
      - eesmith 4y ago
        Next, tell me how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Assuming your definition makes sense, what are the "interactions ... processes and tools" between me-the-vendor and me-the-developer? What is the comprehensive documentation that I'm supposed to avoid? What is the contract negotiation?
        eurasiantiger 4y ago
        Think about it.
        eesmith 4y ago
        I've spent over 20 years thinking about it, and not been able to figure it out. Since it's clear to you, perhaps you can clarify how the Agile Manifesto applies to software product sales when there's a single developer and once-per-year product cycles?
        eurasiantiger 4y ago
        Well, you do have a process there already — the release cycle. Why once per year?
        eesmith 4y ago
        Sure, I have a process. I have 10K+ unit tests run across multiple OSes and Python versions, I have a checklist for release, and more. But if "a process" is all that's needed to be Agile then waterfall is Agile. Why not once a year? Does Agile require a higher delivery frequency than that? That is, how is your question relevant to the topic?
  - therealdrag0 4y ago
    My team of 7 (inc manager and pm) does 2 stand-ups a week (doing it in slack is okay if needed), and never sprint planning or any other recurring meetings. Any other planning or meetings is done as hoc as needed. We usually have ~3 projects going on in parallel so not many cooks in kitchen and not a lot of syncing required. We use jira for tickets and have a “sprint board”, but it’s super casual just a place to track stuff and I roll the sprint once a month without any meeting or ceremony.
  - onethought 4y ago
    I was using the term to find common ground. I don’t call them epics, just they are a big thing. Scrum reminds me of the old adage about measuring a beach, you can measure it by sight, or by using a yardstick, or by counting grains of sand in a row. Scrum sits too close to counting sand, I prefer to be at the yardstick level. There is an idiocy to scrum that involves/wastes the whole team on simple planning tasks that could be more effectively done by a single person. This is compounded with practices like mobbing… It removes craft from software and just makes it lowest common denominator. Agile manifesto is still great and relevant. But that’s not what people mean when they say Agile
llanowarelves 4y ago
How management in corporations now use that word has almost nothing to do with what it is supposed to (OODA Loop).
ResearchCode 4y ago
Probably similar to you but without "sprints" or "stand-ups" or reporting to "product owners", "agile coaches" or "business analysts". You would work on "epics", or projects as you would call them more dignifiedly.

What do you mean by the question? Non-agile people? You mean people that don’t do scrum? Or do you want someone to step forward and say: “I’m really rigid and refuse to change direction once I start, this is how I get things done…” If you mean no scrum, simple, no card wall, tasks are epics, trust people to know what to do and let them do it. Help people when needed.

keyraycheck 4y ago
I would love to know how people work. I wonder what is the alternative. The board is far from only agile practice and nit obligatory either. Even Epic sounds like an agile term.
- eesmith 4y ago
  The problem I have with your question is "agile" seems to mean anything except a pure waterfall development model. Even modified waterfall seems to be described as agile. As a sole developer of a software product, I haven't figured out how the agile principles even apply to me. "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools" doesn't work when there's only one person. "Working software over comprehensive documentation" Does that mean ship code but don't provide comprehensive documentation to my users? No, it means internal process documentation. Which isn't applicable since it's just me. "Customer collaboration over contract negotiation". That only applies for contract software development. I sell a software product. "Responding to change over following a plan". I don't have much of a plan, so I guess I do this one. But I do have a long-term vision, since that's essential to figuring out what groundwork to have. Personally, I learned RAD (rapid application development) when I was a young programmer back in the 1990s, and that's what I still use.
  - eurasiantiger 4y ago
    You, the developer, have one customer: you, the software vendor. The software vendor sells a software product, not the developer.
    - eesmith 4y ago
      Next, tell me how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Assuming your definition makes sense, what are the "interactions ... processes and tools" between me-the-vendor and me-the-developer? What is the comprehensive documentation that I'm supposed to avoid? What is the contract negotiation?
      - eurasiantiger 4y ago
        Think about it.
        eesmith 4y ago
        I've spent over 20 years thinking about it, and not been able to figure it out. Since it's clear to you, perhaps you can clarify how the Agile Manifesto applies to software product sales when there's a single developer and once-per-year product cycles?
        eurasiantiger 4y ago
        Well, you do have a process there already — the release cycle. Why once per year?
        eesmith 4y ago
        Sure, I have a process. I have 10K+ unit tests run across multiple OSes and Python versions, I have a checklist for release, and more. But if "a process" is all that's needed to be Agile then waterfall is Agile. Why not once a year? Does Agile require a higher delivery frequency than that? That is, how is your question relevant to the topic?
- therealdrag0 4y ago
  My team of 7 (inc manager and pm) does 2 stand-ups a week (doing it in slack is okay if needed), and never sprint planning or any other recurring meetings. Any other planning or meetings is done as hoc as needed. We usually have ~3 projects going on in parallel so not many cooks in kitchen and not a lot of syncing required. We use jira for tickets and have a “sprint board”, but it’s super casual just a place to track stuff and I roll the sprint once a month without any meeting or ceremony.
- onethought 4y ago
  I was using the term to find common ground. I don’t call them epics, just they are a big thing. Scrum reminds me of the old adage about measuring a beach, you can measure it by sight, or by using a yardstick, or by counting grains of sand in a row. Scrum sits too close to counting sand, I prefer to be at the yardstick level. There is an idiocy to scrum that involves/wastes the whole team on simple planning tasks that could be more effectively done by a single person. This is compounded with practices like mobbing… It removes craft from software and just makes it lowest common denominator. Agile manifesto is still great and relevant. But that’s not what people mean when they say Agile

llanowarelves 4y ago

How management in corporations now use that word has almost nothing to do with what it is supposed to (OODA Loop).

ResearchCode 4y ago

Probably similar to you but without "sprints" or "stand-ups" or reporting to "product owners", "agile coaches" or "business analysts". You would work on "epics", or projects as you would call them more dignifiedly.