3 ms·

> "Every" is a pretty big word, and it's a pretty immature attitude to write off whole groups of people. "Every" usually doesn't literally mean "every", but I'

> "Every" is a pretty big word, and it's a pretty immature attitude to write off whole groups of people. "Every" usually doesn't literally mean "every", but I'm sorry that my experience across several large companies is that the people that demand following "Agile Ceremonies" are by-and-large Project Managers, and (with rare exception) not the engineers or the technical eng managers. I've seen this at multiple large companies. And I remember clearly how much awesome, robust software we shipped before Agile creeped in around 2008-2010, to then be told we were "doing it wrong" because our work wasn't broken down into 2-week sprints. > if you ship the wrong stuff Two-Week Sprints are neither necessary nor sufficient to avoid this. > It's a common attitude among immature devs who can't get beyond the whole "I have the most important job in the company" mindset. I'd expect it out of a junior dev, but someone who has 13 years of experience? That's not the flex you think it is. That's super ad hominem. I'd rather hear a specific counter-argument on the necessity of Agile sprints.

psunavy03 3y ago
2-week sprints are neither always necessary nor required. And yes, there are unfortunately plenty of inflexible idiots pushing cookie-cutter methods like that in industry because they don't understand the deeper reasons behind what they're asking, such as empirical process control theory and the behavior of complex adaptive systems. But what's equally ad hominem is this implication that every agilist is this incompetent, that no one who goes by that term has ever deployed code, or that Agile as an approach is always wrong and always inhibits delivering good software. THAT is immature. That's taking bad implementations and generalizing them to say that every implementation is automatically bad. Just because the Detroit Lions are historically horrible isn't empirical proof that it's impossible to play good football. Agile is not two-week sprints. Agile is not daily standups. These are tools which may or may not be appropriate in a given context. Agile is a mindset, not a strict process, and it was originally developed by engineers for engineers. The fact that you're even bringing "Project Managers" into the discussion is telling, because that is not a role which exists in any credible Agile organization, and for good reason.
- geodel 3y ago
  > Agile is a mindset, not a strict process, and it was originally developed by engineers for engineers. The fact that you're even bringing "Project Managers" into the discussion is telling, I think true Agile and agile organization are big foot that common people like me have never seen. Only enlightened Agilist understand the meaning of: Agile is Nothing, Nothing is Agile. If scrum is not enough have scrum of scrums if scrum of scrum is not enough have scrum of scrum of scrums (duh).
  - psunavy03 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - sirwhinesalot 3y ago
      Agile is like communism, the only reason it never works is that Real(tm) Agile has never been tried. This is the argument you have been making this whole time while accusing the other commenter of flinging shit like a monkey. (Edit: just to be clear, I'm a big proponent of the original agile manifesto. I'm pointing out what you are doing.)
  - mgarstecki 3y ago
    I think it is wrong to look for "true agile", as it's not a set of checkboxes to fill. I agree with other comments that sprints, backlogs, etc. are just tools to pick from based on the problems you're facing. You see them proposed time and again because many organizations face the same, boring problems as everyone. To me, the only one true principle of Agile is to: - Always take time to reflect on the way you and your team work - Discuss openly if it's appropriate or not - Be ready to accept ANY solution that is discussed, be it organizational, technical, or self-improvement. I would even go as far as calling it a basic principle of engineering. It is very simple to state, but very hard to implement due to our human nature (ego and feelings get in the way of open discussion and self-change) and budgets (taking time to discuss and implement change feels like a cost to most management, not added value). There were examples of this principle and mindset in many organizations long before Agile was codified, and it can actually cause valuable results in organizations that look nothing like the stereotype of Agile ! For example, the NASA software department was famous for stopping all developments any time their QA detected any bug, and taking the time needed to ensure this kind of bug can never be committed again in the future. This kind of behavior is extremely Agile to me : continually improving your process to match your requirements. It is very slow and expensive for them, but it matches the stakes (potential loss of lives).

psunavy03 3y ago

2-week sprints are neither always necessary nor required. And yes, there are unfortunately plenty of inflexible idiots pushing cookie-cutter methods like that in industry because they don't understand the deeper reasons behind what they're asking, such as empirical process control theory and the behavior of complex adaptive systems. But what's equally ad hominem is this implication that every agilist is this incompetent, that no one who goes by that term has ever deployed code, or that Agile as an approach is always wrong and always inhibits delivering good software. THAT is immature. That's taking bad implementations and generalizing them to say that every implementation is automatically bad. Just because the Detroit Lions are historically horrible isn't empirical proof that it's impossible to play good football. Agile is not two-week sprints. Agile is not daily standups. These are tools which may or may not be appropriate in a given context. Agile is a mindset, not a strict process, and it was originally developed by engineers for engineers. The fact that you're even bringing "Project Managers" into the discussion is telling, because that is not a role which exists in any credible Agile organization, and for good reason.

geodel 3y ago
> Agile is a mindset, not a strict process, and it was originally developed by engineers for engineers. The fact that you're even bringing "Project Managers" into the discussion is telling, I think true Agile and agile organization are big foot that common people like me have never seen. Only enlightened Agilist understand the meaning of: Agile is Nothing, Nothing is Agile. If scrum is not enough have scrum of scrums if scrum of scrum is not enough have scrum of scrum of scrums (duh).
- psunavy03 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - sirwhinesalot 3y ago
    Agile is like communism, the only reason it never works is that Real(tm) Agile has never been tried. This is the argument you have been making this whole time while accusing the other commenter of flinging shit like a monkey. (Edit: just to be clear, I'm a big proponent of the original agile manifesto. I'm pointing out what you are doing.)
- mgarstecki 3y ago
  I think it is wrong to look for "true agile", as it's not a set of checkboxes to fill. I agree with other comments that sprints, backlogs, etc. are just tools to pick from based on the problems you're facing. You see them proposed time and again because many organizations face the same, boring problems as everyone. To me, the only one true principle of Agile is to: - Always take time to reflect on the way you and your team work - Discuss openly if it's appropriate or not - Be ready to accept ANY solution that is discussed, be it organizational, technical, or self-improvement. I would even go as far as calling it a basic principle of engineering. It is very simple to state, but very hard to implement due to our human nature (ego and feelings get in the way of open discussion and self-change) and budgets (taking time to discuss and implement change feels like a cost to most management, not added value). There were examples of this principle and mindset in many organizations long before Agile was codified, and it can actually cause valuable results in organizations that look nothing like the stereotype of Agile ! For example, the NASA software department was famous for stopping all developments any time their QA detected any bug, and taking the time needed to ensure this kind of bug can never be committed again in the future. This kind of behavior is extremely Agile to me : continually improving your process to match your requirements. It is very slow and expensive for them, but it matches the stakes (potential loss of lives).