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I have to ask: how often do these formal buzzword project management techniques find their way into the real world? I've not been doing this long, but it seems

I have to ask: how often do these formal buzzword project management techniques find their way into the real world? I've not been doing this long, but it seems to me that the folks who set deliverables either don't use these methodologies, or use an unnamed amalgamation. Am I wrong?

philfreo 17y ago
I think you'd be surprised at how many funded startups are using scrum, as well as some large tech companies, at least in the valley.
mikeryan 17y ago
Agile methodologies have made their way into many startups and established companies. When I was working at Comcast large portions of the software engineering groups was starting to sync on a product cycle. That being said - I've not seen much consistency across implementations. It generally breaks down to some sort of product backlog which is worked on in small chunks on some cycle (months, weeks, two-weeks whatever...). This is a pretty basic change to the normal waterfall cycle and easy to implement, and works well for many teams. The rest of the Agile/Scrum/pick your particular method is left to the project/product/SE manager and you really have to find what works for your team, and I'm not sure makes that big of a difference in the end.
raganwald 17y ago
ING Direct (USA) uses Scrum and has for years. They are very happy with the results.
mechanical_fish 17y ago
It depends entirely on where you are. Some projects are a completely chaotic mess, of course. Some have a methodology, perhaps cobbled from bits and pieces of conventional wisdom, but they don't give it a name. Some explicitly declare a methodology and pay attention to its rules, more or less. Some, alas, become religious devotees of a methodology, train a police force to enforce the rules, and go into full blown cargo cult mode. But all real-world instantiations of methodologies are, in some sense, "amalgamations". For one thing, none of them are complete. As both the article and Raganwald point out, Scrum is far from a complete description of what you need to do to organize a successful project, just as using Lisp and Emacs aren't sufficient conditions for producing great software.
gchucky 17y ago
Way more often than you think. When I did my Scrum certification, there were people from lots of the financial corporations in NYC. I know Verizon is slowly starting to have its people get certified. My biggest problem with that is that I think a lot of these companies are having their people learn Scrum because they think it'll be their silver bullet, as if taking a bunch of people and having them start doing Scrum will suddenly turn all of their failed or ultradelayed projects into victories.
locopati 17y ago
Scripps Networks Interactive uses Scrum with varying degrees of success (as one of the early comments noted - it depends on the skills of the project owner - but even without that, it helps keep dev focused on deliverables that work).
mhd 17y ago
We're talking about management here. The old quip about 'herding cats' comes pretty close to the truth. So there's a large amount of uncertaintanty involved. Buzzwords give a sense of security, even if there's not much behind them. Six Sigma. ITIL. Scrum. Paradigm shifts. Proactively promoting synergy.
cjbos 17y ago
I've used Scrum at MTV Networks and at Conde Nast. I heard from a ex colleague he was trialling Scrum at Time Warner. Scrum worked very well for us at MTV Networks with the project I was working on. Due to us having a very experienced Scrum Master and the Project Owner being very active and understanding how to prioritize his requirements.

philfreo 17y ago

I think you'd be surprised at how many funded startups are using scrum, as well as some large tech companies, at least in the valley.

mikeryan 17y ago

Agile methodologies have made their way into many startups and established companies. When I was working at Comcast large portions of the software engineering groups was starting to sync on a product cycle. That being said - I've not seen much consistency across implementations. It generally breaks down to some sort of product backlog which is worked on in small chunks on some cycle (months, weeks, two-weeks whatever...). This is a pretty basic change to the normal waterfall cycle and easy to implement, and works well for many teams. The rest of the Agile/Scrum/pick your particular method is left to the project/product/SE manager and you really have to find what works for your team, and I'm not sure makes that big of a difference in the end.

raganwald 17y ago

ING Direct (USA) uses Scrum and has for years. They are very happy with the results.

mechanical_fish 17y ago

It depends entirely on where you are. Some projects are a completely chaotic mess, of course. Some have a methodology, perhaps cobbled from bits and pieces of conventional wisdom, but they don't give it a name. Some explicitly declare a methodology and pay attention to its rules, more or less. Some, alas, become religious devotees of a methodology, train a police force to enforce the rules, and go into full blown cargo cult mode. But all real-world instantiations of methodologies are, in some sense, "amalgamations". For one thing, none of them are complete. As both the article and Raganwald point out, Scrum is far from a complete description of what you need to do to organize a successful project, just as using Lisp and Emacs aren't sufficient conditions for producing great software.

gchucky 17y ago

Way more often than you think. When I did my Scrum certification, there were people from lots of the financial corporations in NYC. I know Verizon is slowly starting to have its people get certified. My biggest problem with that is that I think a lot of these companies are having their people learn Scrum because they think it'll be their silver bullet, as if taking a bunch of people and having them start doing Scrum will suddenly turn all of their failed or ultradelayed projects into victories.

locopati 17y ago

Scripps Networks Interactive uses Scrum with varying degrees of success (as one of the early comments noted - it depends on the skills of the project owner - but even without that, it helps keep dev focused on deliverables that work).

mhd 17y ago

We're talking about management here. The old quip about 'herding cats' comes pretty close to the truth. So there's a large amount of uncertaintanty involved. Buzzwords give a sense of security, even if there's not much behind them. Six Sigma. ITIL. Scrum. Paradigm shifts. Proactively promoting synergy.

cjbos 17y ago

I've used Scrum at MTV Networks and at Conde Nast. I heard from a ex colleague he was trialling Scrum at Time Warner. Scrum worked very well for us at MTV Networks with the project I was working on. Due to us having a very experienced Scrum Master and the Project Owner being very active and understanding how to prioritize his requirements.