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I've been around a bit while contracting and have experienced about 15 organisations, a handful of which did not estimate work except the occasional natural ten
by hkt 2y ago
I've been around a bit while contracting and have experienced about 15 organisations, a handful of which did not estimate work except the occasional natural tendency of one engineer to say to another "this seems a bit big". That group that doesn't insist on boilerplate agile ritual is way more effective. The trouble is that some manager or another higher up the chain will assume time and motion studies on tech can be done locally (or at all) demands a dashboard of what is essentially made up information about what kind of work the organisation is doing.
Agile per se isn't killing software innovation: training non-technical people who have no concept whatsoever of what's going on and then insisting they invent arbitrary funny money to express work size.
The ideal way to resist this appears to emerge naturally in most even vaguely experienced engineers: double your estimates.
- dmvdoug 2y agoTaylorism was bullshit in its original form too. I had a history professor in graduate school whose PhD/book was about this. I can try to find it if you’re interested.
- hkt 2y agoI'm incredibly interested as it happens. I had honestly never questioned it before and I'm fascinated.
- dmvdoug 2y agoHm, the book is about Taylorism from 1945 on it seems, but it’s Stephen Waring, Taylorism Transformed: Scientific Management Theory since 1945. Looks like it was published by UNC Press 1991. I do remember conversations with him to the effect that Taylorism ab initio was as much ideological in aim as seeking efficiency, but (1) that’s obviously his view (though a considered one after studying the sources) and (2) I don’t have any citations I could give you to support that beyond vaguely recalled conversations after class.