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I wish more people understood this. Nobody should be arguing for Agile anymore. Don't say "no, but-" or "that is not what the Manifesto says-" because you're on

by SPBS 3y ago

I wish more people understood this. Nobody should be arguing for Agile anymore. Don't say "no, but-" or "that is not what the Manifesto says-" because you're only strengthening the case for Agile as propagated by the fraudmasters simply by virtue of it sharing the same name as the thing you're arguing for. Leave the term behind, find something else.

GauntletWizard 3y ago
The problem is that it's a neverending treadmill of naming if you do that. Every good idea will be taken over by fraudsters. A lot of good ideas are already tainted by this, and while you have to pick your battles, there's something to be said for standing your ground on naming.
- grugagag 3y ago
  Don’t name it, just do. As soon as you name it and becomes a bit known fraudsters come, take the name and begin the grift
  - lucumo 3y ago
    This has been my favourite approach as well. Once you label something, you get discussions about what is and isn't the label. Once you label something, the debate on semantics starts and the discussion of the problem stops. At the same time, unnamed things exist in a state where you can't even think about them without thinking about what it really is. You don't have a word for it, so you have to use the description. And that makes it easier to change too, if it doesn't work or when circumstances change.
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  > The problem is that it's a neverending treadmill of naming if you do that. OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) have replaced KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) due to some kind of contrived negative connotation that became associated with KPIs over time But they're the exact same thing. Something else will replace OKR in a few years so that management can sound as if they're more in tune with the sensitivities of their employees and, yes, OKRs were a bit on the nose, so luckily we've got FCKs now, they're modern and progressive, like us! How many FCKs do you give?
  - oneshtein 3y ago
    OKR is an Objective + KPIs.
- pydry 3y ago
  The thing that made agile ripe for fraudsters/cargo cultists was how vaguely it was defined. That can be fixed by defining something new, more precisely.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
    > That can be fixed by defining something new, more precisely. I do not think that we're going to find a single precisely-defined process that will work well for everyone. The strength of the OG Agile thinking was the iterative, "inspect and adapt", "shorten the feedback cycle" thinking. Which is somewhat in opposition to your desire for a precisely defined process. The Agile manifesto specifically stated that "process" was one of the "items on the right" that had less value. So what you propose is not a fix to it, it is a different mindset. It is process-first. And because it is a more rigid and inflexible, it is less suitable to the business of software.
    - pydry 3y ago
      I absolutely don't think we need a single precisely defined process that will work for everyone. That's scrum and it's shit. I think we just need some criteria which can provide clear answers to whether you're doing agile or bullshitting around or doing cargo cult agile. The manifesto/principles aren't that but they should have been. Instead they were some sort of vague inspiring motivational bullshit. "Build projects around motivated individuals!". Yeah, ok whatever. No mention of the word iterate though. My proposal isn't a different mindset. I actually think I have the same one as you because when I think "agile" my interpretation centers more around short feedback cycles and iterative development. I use those words. People who have done it use those words. The manifesto doesn't. The CEOs who want to bring in "agile consultants" while still keeping quarterly milestone planning sure don't. They think it's a kind of software they install in their devs are are generally oblivious to the idea that it means they have to change too. The fact that they do needs to be brought into sharp focus. The fact that the consultants who promise them waterfall in agile clothing are bullshitting needs to be brought into sharp focus. My proposal is to codify more precisely the things which make "agile" "agile" so that it becomes at the very least harder if not impossible to bullshit about it. I'm not suggesting making it less flexible. I'm suggesting we describe what it is in a way that we can categorically rule out what it isn't. And then give it a different name, to avoid all the baggage from the old one. Some name I can point to and say "we need to be doing that" which rules out at least 95% of the bullshit artists.
- Vegenoid 3y ago
  This is just how language often works. A term is co-opted and becomes increasingly associated with more things. Rarely are people able to reverse this process, so to narrow the associations requires a new term.
drewcoo 3y ago
> Leave the term behind, find something else. Asking software engineers to name things? Now you have two problems.

by SPBS 3y ago

GauntletWizard 3y ago

The problem is that it's a neverending treadmill of naming if you do that. Every good idea will be taken over by fraudsters. A lot of good ideas are already tainted by this, and while you have to pick your battles, there's something to be said for standing your ground on naming.

grugagag 3y ago
Don’t name it, just do. As soon as you name it and becomes a bit known fraudsters come, take the name and begin the grift
- lucumo 3y ago
  This has been my favourite approach as well. Once you label something, you get discussions about what is and isn't the label. Once you label something, the debate on semantics starts and the discussion of the problem stops. At the same time, unnamed things exist in a state where you can't even think about them without thinking about what it really is. You don't have a word for it, so you have to use the description. And that makes it easier to change too, if it doesn't work or when circumstances change.
BLKNSLVR 3y ago
> The problem is that it's a neverending treadmill of naming if you do that. OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) have replaced KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) due to some kind of contrived negative connotation that became associated with KPIs over time But they're the exact same thing. Something else will replace OKR in a few years so that management can sound as if they're more in tune with the sensitivities of their employees and, yes, OKRs were a bit on the nose, so luckily we've got FCKs now, they're modern and progressive, like us! How many FCKs do you give?
- oneshtein 3y ago
  OKR is an Objective + KPIs.
pydry 3y ago
The thing that made agile ripe for fraudsters/cargo cultists was how vaguely it was defined. That can be fixed by defining something new, more precisely.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
  > That can be fixed by defining something new, more precisely. I do not think that we're going to find a single precisely-defined process that will work well for everyone. The strength of the OG Agile thinking was the iterative, "inspect and adapt", "shorten the feedback cycle" thinking. Which is somewhat in opposition to your desire for a precisely defined process. The Agile manifesto specifically stated that "process" was one of the "items on the right" that had less value. So what you propose is not a fix to it, it is a different mindset. It is process-first. And because it is a more rigid and inflexible, it is less suitable to the business of software.
  - pydry 3y ago
    I absolutely don't think we need a single precisely defined process that will work for everyone. That's scrum and it's shit. I think we just need some criteria which can provide clear answers to whether you're doing agile or bullshitting around or doing cargo cult agile. The manifesto/principles aren't that but they should have been. Instead they were some sort of vague inspiring motivational bullshit. "Build projects around motivated individuals!". Yeah, ok whatever. No mention of the word iterate though. My proposal isn't a different mindset. I actually think I have the same one as you because when I think "agile" my interpretation centers more around short feedback cycles and iterative development. I use those words. People who have done it use those words. The manifesto doesn't. The CEOs who want to bring in "agile consultants" while still keeping quarterly milestone planning sure don't. They think it's a kind of software they install in their devs are are generally oblivious to the idea that it means they have to change too. The fact that they do needs to be brought into sharp focus. The fact that the consultants who promise them waterfall in agile clothing are bullshitting needs to be brought into sharp focus. My proposal is to codify more precisely the things which make "agile" "agile" so that it becomes at the very least harder if not impossible to bullshit about it. I'm not suggesting making it less flexible. I'm suggesting we describe what it is in a way that we can categorically rule out what it isn't. And then give it a different name, to avoid all the baggage from the old one. Some name I can point to and say "we need to be doing that" which rules out at least 95% of the bullshit artists.
Vegenoid 3y ago
This is just how language often works. A term is co-opted and becomes increasingly associated with more things. Rarely are people able to reverse this process, so to narrow the associations requires a new term.

drewcoo 3y ago

> Leave the term behind, find something else. Asking software engineers to name things? Now you have two problems.