5 ms·

Is it April 1? Andy poo-talks Agile and then drops GROWS (TM) on us? You have got to be kidding me. It's been mentioned on here a lot that if you have a skil

by Yhippa 11y ago

Is it April 1? Andy poo-talks Agile and then drops GROWS (TM) on us? You have got to be kidding me. It's been mentioned on here a lot that if you have a skilled set of programmers on your team you probably don't need Agile. They are self-managed and tend to do the Right Thing (TM) on their own. I have seen Agile work and when it does it's pretty fun. Things move along, issues are dealt with, and nobody panics when things get behind a little. Just move it to the next release. I think the problem is that The Consultants sold Agile to enterprise dev shops and they really ate it up. I don't feel Agile works from the top-down but rather organically from the bottom-up. In fact I believe that is true for most programming methodologies like this. And Scrum. Don't get me started on Scrum.

commentnull 11y ago
I have just bought a "Learning GROWS" book from the Pragmatic Programmer online store, and have hired a consultant to educate (inculcate?) the team on the new methodology. We even are using one of the new open source libraries that tests and enforces the process, it is called 'poison ivy' - it hurts, like all good software engineering processes do! Edit: do the downvoters disagree? We don't think there will be books, courses, tools for this new methodology?
- ExpiredLink 11y ago
  Most people here are humor impaired. Don't try to be funny. It won't work.
  - dasil003 11y ago
    We're not humor impaired, there's just a higher bar. Otherwise it becomes like every other internet forum ever: dominated by one-liner meme-based reply-chains that drown out the real conversation.
    - yborg 11y ago
      Then maybe we're irony-impaired. The head of this chain was making a point ironically. It in fact took me a moment to fully appreciate the fact.
tablet 11y ago
> if you have a skilled set of programmers on your team you probably don't need Agile This. Craft and passion beat any process. These people will organize themselves into the most efficient process eventually.
- matthewmacleod 11y ago
  This. Craft and passion beat any process. These people will organize themselves into the most efficient process eventually. My direct experience of working with programmers over the years is that this will generally descend rapidly into an inefficient mess. Yes – maybe it works, sometimes. I'd argue that's the exception, rather than the rule.
  - tablet 11y ago
    I'll add that teams should be cross-functional. If every team has product related person, designer, developers and qa — they will do OK.
  - shadowmint 11y ago
    http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ If you work with people who dont care, youre screwed. Nothing will ever work to force them to actively engage with the process of creating good software. ..but, surprisingly, when you do work with people who do care, they self organize remarkably well. The Valve megacorporation is fundamentally based on this. It works. Thats been my personal experience, over the years. The problem that has to be addressed is convincing people to care, and self improve. Forcing a process on the unwilling is going to fail no matter what you do.
    - zelos 11y ago
      > The Valve megacorporation is fundamentally based on this. It works. So where's my Half Life 3, dammit ;-)
    - Anderkent 11y ago
      And often they self-organise by taking an established process and bending it into something that works out for them. Which is fine. But that doesn't mean designing a process is useless - if it's a good base it'll be easier for the team to adapt it into something that is good for them.
nickbauman 11y ago
^^^ Exactly this. I've seen Agile work extremely well when experienced developers decide "we need to change how we've been doing things". Coming down from management it becomes just another way of lowering the boom on development. Furthermore I think the correct pronunciation for "Scrum" is "Scrummerfall".
xwkd 11y ago
> I don't feel Agile works from the top-down but rather organically from the bottom-up. I believe that is the crux of the issue. Larger organizations, and especially those that view IT as a cost center, do not feel comfortable giving control to programmers. Every time a consultant proposes a new method with a new name, it seems like it's just a way to create a side industry; a long con that doesn't really attempt to fix the larger issue. I believe the hard problem to solve (which may be impossible, I'm not sure) is getting an organization to see their programmers as business collaborators rather than an inconvenient necessity.
axaxs 11y ago
I largely agree, but think it has more to do with passion or interest than strictly skill. Any process that leads people to work with each other to GSD seems best. The best project I've ever been apart of was with myself and a couple others in other time zones in our free time. We communicated by email with our progress, what we planned to do, what we needed from others, etc. And since the team was small, everyone had their place and pitched in, and we created something beautiful at an amazing pace. It is an open source project I work on to this day, though largely just small fixes anymore. In a corporate environment, you tend to have some burn outs, some 'holier-than-thou', some paycheck collectors, etc. The biggest difference probably is that you can't choose who you work with. It seems Agile as I've seen is implemented around that, which ultimately discourages the behaviors described in the prior paragraph. It becomes one writing quickly to finish things for the manager, rather than writing things for your coworkers.
braythwayt 11y ago
> if you have a skilled set of programmers on your team you probably don't need Agile. They are self-managed and tend to do the Right Thing (TM) on their own. "Any sufficiently complicated company w/o management contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of management”--wycats

by Yhippa 11y ago

commentnull 11y ago

I have just bought a "Learning GROWS" book from the Pragmatic Programmer online store, and have hired a consultant to educate (inculcate?) the team on the new methodology. We even are using one of the new open source libraries that tests and enforces the process, it is called 'poison ivy' - it hurts, like all good software engineering processes do! Edit: do the downvoters disagree? We don't think there will be books, courses, tools for this new methodology?

ExpiredLink 11y ago
Most people here are humor impaired. Don't try to be funny. It won't work.
- dasil003 11y ago
  We're not humor impaired, there's just a higher bar. Otherwise it becomes like every other internet forum ever: dominated by one-liner meme-based reply-chains that drown out the real conversation.
  - yborg 11y ago
    Then maybe we're irony-impaired. The head of this chain was making a point ironically. It in fact took me a moment to fully appreciate the fact.

tablet 11y ago

> if you have a skilled set of programmers on your team you probably don't need Agile This. Craft and passion beat any process. These people will organize themselves into the most efficient process eventually.

matthewmacleod 11y ago
This. Craft and passion beat any process. These people will organize themselves into the most efficient process eventually. My direct experience of working with programmers over the years is that this will generally descend rapidly into an inefficient mess. Yes – maybe it works, sometimes. I'd argue that's the exception, rather than the rule.
- tablet 11y ago
  I'll add that teams should be cross-functional. If every team has product related person, designer, developers and qa — they will do OK.
- shadowmint 11y ago
  http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ If you work with people who dont care, youre screwed. Nothing will ever work to force them to actively engage with the process of creating good software. ..but, surprisingly, when you do work with people who do care, they self organize remarkably well. The Valve megacorporation is fundamentally based on this. It works. Thats been my personal experience, over the years. The problem that has to be addressed is convincing people to care, and self improve. Forcing a process on the unwilling is going to fail no matter what you do.
  - zelos 11y ago
    > The Valve megacorporation is fundamentally based on this. It works. So where's my Half Life 3, dammit ;-)
  - Anderkent 11y ago
    And often they self-organise by taking an established process and bending it into something that works out for them. Which is fine. But that doesn't mean designing a process is useless - if it's a good base it'll be easier for the team to adapt it into something that is good for them.

nickbauman 11y ago

^^^ Exactly this. I've seen Agile work extremely well when experienced developers decide "we need to change how we've been doing things". Coming down from management it becomes just another way of lowering the boom on development. Furthermore I think the correct pronunciation for "Scrum" is "Scrummerfall".

xwkd 11y ago

> I don't feel Agile works from the top-down but rather organically from the bottom-up. I believe that is the crux of the issue. Larger organizations, and especially those that view IT as a cost center, do not feel comfortable giving control to programmers. Every time a consultant proposes a new method with a new name, it seems like it's just a way to create a side industry; a long con that doesn't really attempt to fix the larger issue. I believe the hard problem to solve (which may be impossible, I'm not sure) is getting an organization to see their programmers as business collaborators rather than an inconvenient necessity.

axaxs 11y ago

I largely agree, but think it has more to do with passion or interest than strictly skill. Any process that leads people to work with each other to GSD seems best. The best project I've ever been apart of was with myself and a couple others in other time zones in our free time. We communicated by email with our progress, what we planned to do, what we needed from others, etc. And since the team was small, everyone had their place and pitched in, and we created something beautiful at an amazing pace. It is an open source project I work on to this day, though largely just small fixes anymore. In a corporate environment, you tend to have some burn outs, some 'holier-than-thou', some paycheck collectors, etc. The biggest difference probably is that you can't choose who you work with. It seems Agile as I've seen is implemented around that, which ultimately discourages the behaviors described in the prior paragraph. It becomes one writing quickly to finish things for the manager, rather than writing things for your coworkers.

braythwayt 11y ago

> if you have a skilled set of programmers on your team you probably don't need Agile. They are self-managed and tend to do the Right Thing (TM) on their own. "Any sufficiently complicated company w/o management contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of management”--wycats