Agile isn’t always Agile

re: Agile isn’t always Agile

Chuck — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:47:41 GMT

Good food for thought, Buck. I have heard interesting arguments on both sides of this debate - e.g. http://bit.ly/92ClsY

I will give your thoughts all consideration as I think the issue through.

I do have this observation, though - not about anything you've said, but about methodology religious wars in general:

Sometimes when I hear people take issue with a methodology, what they are really saying is "the way a given methodology is being implemented where I'm at is dysfunctional". Saying that is a very valid complaint, but it's not the same thing as saying "methodology x is invalid".

Thanks again for getting us thinking...

re: Agile isn’t always Agile

Todd M Heflin — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:12:22 GMT

Excellent thoughts! You have definitely opened up a can-o'-worms though. I have experienced the "perfect" agile project and scrum meetings and the very worse. I would only comment that, in my LIMITED personal expereince, it appeared to me to be the manager who made the difference.

re: Agile isn’t always Agile

Adam Machanic — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:32:36 GMT

Buck,

"Scrum meetings" when you're not actually doing the "scrum" methodology are indeed the gateway to micromanagement and a complete waste of time. The meetings serve a very real purpose within the methodology, and outside of it are just another meeting. The methodology is absolutely not suitable to all projects (maybe even MOST projects) but it can work very well when used in the right place, and these meetings can be productive. Like anything else in our faddish industry, there will always be people who have their "hammer" (agile, XML, ORM, Power Shell, Linux, MySQL, ...) and are looking for any "nail" they can hit with it. That doesn't mean that the hammer is broken, just that these idiots don't understand how to identify the right kind of nail. Or to paraphrase Joe Celko, "this is like pounding wood screws into antique furniture using a chunk of granite."

re: Agile isn’t always Agile

Agile BI — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:43:02 GMT

Doesn't that suggest a fault of the scrum "implementation" rather than the concept? The idea is you should cover "what you did yesterday" and "what you are to do today". If you break from that then someone should pipe up and bring things back on track. It takes time and a little dicipline to get into the swing of things.

I don't like prescriptive processes and people should work in a way that is good for them. What does "Agile" mean anyway - unless you have a course to sell the whole area is very fuzzy, but I don't think that's a bad thing!

I must admit I do like a quick once round the team in the morning as it just helps people keep in touch. There will always be one or two team members who will sit quietly in the corner trying to work through problems on their own and I find the daily meeting (and I don't use the term scrum - this isn't a rugby pitch!) helps keep communication open.

If a team is communicating well continuously throughout the day then perhaps this process is redundant? I'd hate to think people are doing it for the sake of it without recognising any benefit. I guess one of the cool things about agility is the ability to try something new and quickly bin it if no one is actually getting anything from it!

re: Agile isn’t always Agile

Glenn Berry — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 04:47:43 GMT

I too have seen daily scrums being abused as daily status meetings for managers who like to micro-manage. In the military, they used to talk about "management by walking around", meaning get out of your office and go talk to your people, and see what is going on once in a while.

re: Agile isn’t always Agile

Tom Vitale — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 03:00:30 GMT

When I was about 10, I traced the bottom of a glass on a piece of paper and said, "Look Dad, a perfect circle." My father, a 40 year tool and die maker, glanced up from his breakfast and said, "It's not perfect and its not a circle." Incredulously (for a 10 year old) I asked what he meant. He said if you measure it to the 1000th of an inch, like he did every day, it would not be perfectly round. Besides that, circles don't exist...they are just an idea we use to figure out how to build things.

Turns out this also applies to SDLC's. Measure any organization closely enough and it will not be truly waterfall, v-model, rad, rup, iterative or agile. That's because these things don't exist; they are just something good managers can use to create a practical process that works for the particular organization.

What I have found disheartening is that people I think to be very intelligent, high educated and very experienced, still simply do not understand this principal. Someone writes a blog about what worked for them, and a whole wing of a building 1000 miles away goes "Agile". Principles are applied blindly and then the emperor's-new-clothes mentality kicks in. Projects that would have been called runaway in the 90's are now "deferring commitment to the last [ir]responsible moment.

I just wish all of the method evangelists would realize that the operative word in scrum team is team. A manager has to make a process that fits the people they have. As the challenges and people change, they process must too. It is the job of management to form a team and use the process as a tool to help the team enjoy their work, produce better quality and deliver on time.

People on a team should be free to believe in the God of their choice because God is not measurable and therefore is not falsifiable. The efficacy of Dev methods however can by measured. A good team can then decide it is working or it isn't as long as the team/manager/company remember that the goal is to produce software, not the Tao of Scrum or the Platonic Form of the Good for waterfall.

Sorry about the rant. I think everyone knows that there are risks of scrum and they are often realized in a major project...yet most groups will not want to go against the grain and say so. I'm glad you did.

re: Agile isn’t always Agile

The Database Zealot — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 02:01:48 GMT

...and I thought I was the only one.

Thanks for that Buck - I totally agree... agile doesn't work for large projects. I've seen projects go down alleys and side streets when the actual solution was down the main highway.... if only the PM had stopped to check the map and plan the route.

TDZ