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Agile and Waterfall, buzzwords in the same class in my world. It's an odd thing to witness; when management finds a new cure-all for their software development
by SDGT 13y ago
Agile and Waterfall, buzzwords in the same class in my world.
It's an odd thing to witness; when management finds a new cure-all for their software development and IT management woes (in my place, these concepts have been extended to DBA's, BA's, Cognos jockeys, etc), as there is an almost childlike enthusiasm and loyalty to this new silver bullet concept.
I feel like the rift occurs right about here, and the blinders go on for the suits while developers and other plebes shake their heads in disgust, as another wave of "paradigm shifting management strategies" sweep their inboxes with mandatory training meetings and promotional material from Gartner and the likes.
The biggest issue is that we all want the same thing: Good Software Development, but the business environment seems to hammer technical workers with the same insanity wrapped in a new packaging, sold down the line from some haughty focus group that contracted an outside company for a $100k "Agile training package".
The only place I've ever managed to get past all of this cruft is when freelancing with a small team directly with a client; this has never happened at my day job.
Never do we worry about specific methodologies, just three people coding and skype / irc / email with clients. Treat people like humans, and learn to say no when appropriate. Good software development is just organized, civil cooperation.
- taproot 13y agoI cant recall the quote but someone once said the best devepopment methodology was to hire a bunch of 10x developers, lock them in a room with a mission statement and leave them to their own devices. The problem with that is not much unlike waterfall, it provides little to no transparencyfor the employing party, very little accountability and almost no meaningful measureability.
- UK-AL 13y ago"I cant recall the quote but someone once said the best devepopment methodology was to hire a bunch of 10x developers, lock them in a room with a mission statement and leave them to their own devices." This is why the majority of start ups fail. Developers have a ridgid vision of product, and then they spend 6/7 months building that product and then at the end you find out no one actually wants that product. Even though the product is good, its just solves a problem no ones interested in. You need have system to actually work discover if you are creating value. You need something to hold yourself accountable. In reality most successful start ups have a phase of constant learning, just to discover who are their customers, and what they place value on. And they normally have various metrics to hold themselves accountable. The best way I have encountered is agile development with experiments to find out what customers actually need. Then metrics to see how people react to changes. If your vision isn't going anywhere, then you need a fundamental rethink which again needs to be tested.