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> Agile and related practices aren't about delivering increased volume of work but just about making the team more responsive to changes. "Making the team more

> Agile and related practices aren't about delivering increased volume of work but just about making the team more responsive to changes. "Making the team more responsive to changes" so they can start "delivering increased volume of (often poorly specified, decided on the last minute outside of quarterly planning ceremonies because it will make the engineering middle manager look good to the CTO) work" has been my experience with agile everywhere I've done it. Why would any publicly traded business pick a development model that _decreases_ the volume of changes?

marcosdumay 3y ago
Being "responsive to changes" has absolutely no relation with "volume of work". Agile is about being responsive to changes. And yeah, the bad specifications are included. Anybody that makes it about volume of work is dishonest (but I do agree that's the norm). We should not let dishonest people bastardize our language to the point we can't communicate. And the most obvious way to fight back is to call them on their lies. (And yeah, it's implicit but it's very clear that agile is supposed to decrease the volume of work. You can't decide to optimize for something else and not suffer there.)
- phone8675309 3y ago
  > Being "responsive to changes" has absolutely no relation with "volume of work" To you and me, yes, that's a true statement. To the business, it's not. Being "responsive to change" means we're constantly polishing the turds the CTO-adjacent crowd has laid, and we do no service to ourselves by pretending otherwise, or trying to reclaim the language of "agile".
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    Well, what you work on has also absolutely no relation to how much work you do. Or with how responsive you are for changes. You seem to have an emotional issue linking those concepts. They are all different things. But yeah, lying about what you do is harmful too. The top management not wanting to solve real problems or making real products is about as bad as any other kind of management failure.
    - phone8675309 3y ago
      > You seem to have an emotional issue linking those concepts. Hey, I wanted to thank you for this comment. I was really tilted yesterday about adjacent issues and was inadvertently bringing that here. Your comment made me take a step back, look at what I was posting, and stop posting while I was emotional. Thank you.

marcosdumay 3y ago

Being "responsive to changes" has absolutely no relation with "volume of work". Agile is about being responsive to changes. And yeah, the bad specifications are included. Anybody that makes it about volume of work is dishonest (but I do agree that's the norm). We should not let dishonest people bastardize our language to the point we can't communicate. And the most obvious way to fight back is to call them on their lies. (And yeah, it's implicit but it's very clear that agile is supposed to decrease the volume of work. You can't decide to optimize for something else and not suffer there.)

phone8675309 3y ago
> Being "responsive to changes" has absolutely no relation with "volume of work" To you and me, yes, that's a true statement. To the business, it's not. Being "responsive to change" means we're constantly polishing the turds the CTO-adjacent crowd has laid, and we do no service to ourselves by pretending otherwise, or trying to reclaim the language of "agile".
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Well, what you work on has also absolutely no relation to how much work you do. Or with how responsive you are for changes. You seem to have an emotional issue linking those concepts. They are all different things. But yeah, lying about what you do is harmful too. The top management not wanting to solve real problems or making real products is about as bad as any other kind of management failure.
  - phone8675309 3y ago
    > You seem to have an emotional issue linking those concepts. Hey, I wanted to thank you for this comment. I was really tilted yesterday about adjacent issues and was inadvertently bringing that here. Your comment made me take a step back, look at what I was posting, and stop posting while I was emotional. Thank you.