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> I get the impression from some posts on HN that people are toiling away under Agile regimes for years I think this is either because they believe all compani

> I get the impression from some posts on HN that people are toiling away under Agile regimes for years I think this is either because they believe all companies are like this, or they can't get hired elsewhere. > If you feel that way, consider joining an early stage startup This isn't the only option. There are plenty of teams to join tucked away in corners of big companies that have all kinds of different approaches. Or, another option is to just become a manager at a big company, and then you can lead your team towards whatever system you want. You don't have to work at a startup and live in poverty. In my anecdotal experience, the "Agile regimes" most commonly take root at non-tech-industry companies pretending to be tech companies. A lot of those places treat software engineering like it's factory work. One tell-tale sign of a horrible place to work is the "scrum masters." That could be another metric to guide the job search, too — if you see a scrum master, just say no.

PeterCorless 3y ago
There are articles about us being in the 'post-Agile' world. https://riskfirst.org/misc/Post-Agile https://riskfirst.org/misc/Post-Agile In an industry where it's common for customers POCs to sometimes span 6 months, never mind 6 weeks, we expect product teams to deliver mana from heaven in 6 week sprints. Big ticket deliverables just don't work that way any more. We can't go back to pure waterfall. But pure Agile is also a fictitious goal. Whatever methodologies we use today tend to be different strata all happening at the same time, only at different layers. Some things can be solved in a week or two. Others in a month or two. Or a quarter or two. And some jobs are so big they are literally super-annual deliverables. Each happening in parallel at the same time, but on different tracks or lanes of traffic, fastest to slowest.
- notmypenguin 3y ago
  Any extreme software development ideology is at least partly wrong and lacking the introspection to see that fact. Real world dev shouldn’t be subject to any ideology, in my opinion. Scrum master just sounds like some bad management books advice from the 80’s. In the real world, large projects and large teams are rarely efficient and focused, it’s the nature of the beast. One can only hope to improve upon what one has, not solve all problems with a hammer you happen to really like, because most problems aren’t nails
- roqi 3y ago
  > We can't go back to pure waterfall. But pure Agile is also a fictitious goal. What leads you to believe that "pure Agile is also a fictitious goal"? Unless you're using weasel words to refer to Agile in a way you can cherry pick claims to argue that practices that work aren't Agile because they are not "pure", Agile is ubiquitous and is used in countless success stories.

PeterCorless 3y ago

There are articles about us being in the 'post-Agile' world. https://riskfirst.org/misc/Post-Agile https://riskfirst.org/misc/Post-Agile In an industry where it's common for customers POCs to sometimes span 6 months, never mind 6 weeks, we expect product teams to deliver mana from heaven in 6 week sprints. Big ticket deliverables just don't work that way any more. We can't go back to pure waterfall. But pure Agile is also a fictitious goal. Whatever methodologies we use today tend to be different strata all happening at the same time, only at different layers. Some things can be solved in a week or two. Others in a month or two. Or a quarter or two. And some jobs are so big they are literally super-annual deliverables. Each happening in parallel at the same time, but on different tracks or lanes of traffic, fastest to slowest.

notmypenguin 3y ago
Any extreme software development ideology is at least partly wrong and lacking the introspection to see that fact. Real world dev shouldn’t be subject to any ideology, in my opinion. Scrum master just sounds like some bad management books advice from the 80’s. In the real world, large projects and large teams are rarely efficient and focused, it’s the nature of the beast. One can only hope to improve upon what one has, not solve all problems with a hammer you happen to really like, because most problems aren’t nails
roqi 3y ago
> We can't go back to pure waterfall. But pure Agile is also a fictitious goal. What leads you to believe that "pure Agile is also a fictitious goal"? Unless you're using weasel words to refer to Agile in a way you can cherry pick claims to argue that practices that work aren't Agile because they are not "pure", Agile is ubiquitous and is used in countless success stories.