4 ms·

Interesting article. Currently where I work, a $10 bn IT company with 150k+ employees, this is a huge huge problem. The top management wants to bring the enti

by sidcool 12y ago

Interesting article. Currently where I work, a $10 bn IT company with 150k+ employees, this is a huge huge problem. The top management wants to bring the entire company under a single umbrella of processes, management practices etc. So far they have only caused problems. Just to give an example, last year, most of the projects in the company were transitioned to Agile mode from the traditional waterfall. To enforce Agile, they MANDATED using White boards! There are audits in place where people check for each project if they use a white board. I tried arguing with the auditor "Our team is distributed, there are 3 members here, 3 in Mumbai, 2 in Chicago and 4 in NY. The physical white board does not make sense for our project. We maintain a digital whiteboard (in Atlassian's Greenhopper)." I was met with a barrage of phone calls from managers who forced me to use a physical white board. I tried explaining , but apparently a process is a process.

walshemj 12y ago
That sounds like Charlie Stosses laundry (an ISO 9000 branch of SIS)
- arethuza 12y ago
  Nitpick: I think the Laundry is supposed to be the sole surviving remnant of the SOE which will playing a huge part in winning WW2 lost the peacetime battle with the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, AKA MI6). It's worth noting that the SIS seems to have produced quite a few authors (Graham Greene, John Le Carre) who wrote about the intelligence service they thought should have existed rather than the amateurish, Soviet spy-riddled organisation they actually worked in.
  - walshemj 12y ago
    SOE was always part of SIS though there was always a lot of internal politics about who should run SIS FO vs Amy and Navy. Cant make up my mind on Le care's take on the secret service not sure if he was the old pining for the empire stereotype or the new more professional.
wpietri 12y ago
I've been involved with the Agile movement since before the term "Agile" existed, so I can say with some authority that your managers are idiots twice over. First, I do encourage to start with physical boards, but that's because I encourage teams to work in the same place. Agile methods work best with low-latency, high-bandwidth, always-on communication, and by far the easiest way to get that is by sitting in a dedicated team room. But if it's impossible for the team to be together, yeah, a white board just won't cut it. Second, the point of all of the Agile approaches is to have teams continuously improve their process in response to local conditions. There is no single Agile process. There are common starting points, and that often includes a white board or a card board because those are very flexible tools that everybody feels comfortable adapting. But if the whole company is supposed to be doing exactly the same manager-dictated process, then it is definitionally not Agile, because of points 1 and 4 in the manifesto. [1] On a personal note, I want to offer you an apology. It makes me sad that something with such promise for liberating employees and making work better has turned into just another stick to beat employees with. That is the exact opposite of what a lot of the early Agile people intended. I'm very sorry that we weren't more diligent in preventing the movement from getting co-opted by existing power dynamics. [1] http://agilemanifesto.org/ http://agilemanifesto.org/
- sidcool 12y ago
  Thanks! Another funny thing they talk about is velocity. It's the holy metric for managers. "Why isn't your velocity increasing anymore?" Asked one. I said "Because if we keep on increasing velocity, soon we will hit the speed of light." I had no better response. Also, they tend to compare velocities between teams. Story point estimation technique is fundamentally subjective, and cannot be a point of comparison between two different teams. It's a difficult life, but I get by.
  - wpietri 12y ago
    Yes, every bit of that is wrong. If managers put upward pressure on velocity numbers, they will get numbers that go up via point inflation. The right managerial question is: "What can I do to help you solve problems identified in this week's retrospective?" Sadly, modern MBA-style management has some fundamental notions that work against Agile approaches. So you are probably in for more difficulty as they decide what has a higher priority. Feel free to email me if I can be of further service in discussing this.
mateo411 12y ago
One of the fundamental tenets of the Agile Manifesto is People over Process. Interestingly, that point was lost on those managers. Next, they are going to want to talk to you about your flair.
- sidcool 12y ago
  That very true. Agility refers to flexibility and freedom from silly processes, or at least those processes which do not contribute to the product. Now, I get to code only 20-30% of my day. Rest goes in updating white boards for all team members across geographies, providing status to managers who are not on team, creating detailed status reports for each associate in team, creating defect sheets and fish bone diagrams for auditors etc. etc...

by sidcool 12y ago

walshemj 12y ago

That sounds like Charlie Stosses laundry (an ISO 9000 branch of SIS)

arethuza 12y ago
Nitpick: I think the Laundry is supposed to be the sole surviving remnant of the SOE which will playing a huge part in winning WW2 lost the peacetime battle with the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, AKA MI6). It's worth noting that the SIS seems to have produced quite a few authors (Graham Greene, John Le Carre) who wrote about the intelligence service they thought should have existed rather than the amateurish, Soviet spy-riddled organisation they actually worked in.
- walshemj 12y ago
  SOE was always part of SIS though there was always a lot of internal politics about who should run SIS FO vs Amy and Navy. Cant make up my mind on Le care's take on the secret service not sure if he was the old pining for the empire stereotype or the new more professional.

wpietri 12y ago

I've been involved with the Agile movement since before the term "Agile" existed, so I can say with some authority that your managers are idiots twice over. First, I do encourage to start with physical boards, but that's because I encourage teams to work in the same place. Agile methods work best with low-latency, high-bandwidth, always-on communication, and by far the easiest way to get that is by sitting in a dedicated team room. But if it's impossible for the team to be together, yeah, a white board just won't cut it. Second, the point of all of the Agile approaches is to have teams continuously improve their process in response to local conditions. There is no single Agile process. There are common starting points, and that often includes a white board or a card board because those are very flexible tools that everybody feels comfortable adapting. But if the whole company is supposed to be doing exactly the same manager-dictated process, then it is definitionally not Agile, because of points 1 and 4 in the manifesto. [1] On a personal note, I want to offer you an apology. It makes me sad that something with such promise for liberating employees and making work better has turned into just another stick to beat employees with. That is the exact opposite of what a lot of the early Agile people intended. I'm very sorry that we weren't more diligent in preventing the movement from getting co-opted by existing power dynamics. [1] http://agilemanifesto.org/ http://agilemanifesto.org/

sidcool 12y ago
Thanks! Another funny thing they talk about is velocity. It's the holy metric for managers. "Why isn't your velocity increasing anymore?" Asked one. I said "Because if we keep on increasing velocity, soon we will hit the speed of light." I had no better response. Also, they tend to compare velocities between teams. Story point estimation technique is fundamentally subjective, and cannot be a point of comparison between two different teams. It's a difficult life, but I get by.
- wpietri 12y ago
  Yes, every bit of that is wrong. If managers put upward pressure on velocity numbers, they will get numbers that go up via point inflation. The right managerial question is: "What can I do to help you solve problems identified in this week's retrospective?" Sadly, modern MBA-style management has some fundamental notions that work against Agile approaches. So you are probably in for more difficulty as they decide what has a higher priority. Feel free to email me if I can be of further service in discussing this.

mateo411 12y ago

One of the fundamental tenets of the Agile Manifesto is People over Process. Interestingly, that point was lost on those managers. Next, they are going to want to talk to you about your flair.

sidcool 12y ago
That very true. Agility refers to flexibility and freedom from silly processes, or at least those processes which do not contribute to the product. Now, I get to code only 20-30% of my day. Rest goes in updating white boards for all team members across geographies, providing status to managers who are not on team, creating detailed status reports for each associate in team, creating defect sheets and fish bone diagrams for auditors etc. etc...