Anybody else just sick of contracting?

[Smartie]

I've worked places where they have spent vast sums of money implementing it (or trying to) and it's still reduced output massively over a classic 'get sh1t done' scenario where the team figures out its own way to deliver.

It's not the panacea it's made out to be, and that is NOT in defense of Waterfall which i'm not a fan of either.

If something is so hard to get done correctly as you say, then it should be looked at as an approach in a toolkit which can be evaluated on its own merits, rather than some kind of dogma that nobody dare question, and must be applied to any given thing, in any scenario.

Then again, the millennials seem to love it.

My team gets tulip done one way or the other using agile, though we don't stick rigidly to any methodology. One of the big problems is that people implement it in development but forget all the dependencies on other teams who aren't agile and want to set up a meeting a week on Tuesday to plan the architecture meeting. You need everyone available to sort stuff out at short notice.

They also conveniently disregard some of the key requirements such as face to face communication (by using offshore teams) and having excellent people who can swap roles to get things done.

Execs also find it challenging when you can't provide a detailed long term product roadmap or won't produce lengthy time-consuming reports in their preferred format. Getting budget isn't that easy either.

Anyway, what we do makes us look good and has provided a pretty long term business relationship, though that has varied between pretty interesting and quite tedious.

[Big Blue Plymouth]

Then again, the millennials seem to love it.

Tell me about it.

Some of them seem to think it's like playing Dungeons and Dragons & every single rule has to be followed to the letter.

Don't even get me started on the fecking shirt sizes routine.

I have to put my hand up here & admit that when I find myself in such a culture, I am not exactly 100% onboard and this probably shows.

As I said earlier, give me a client who says here's what we want, you've got 3 months to do it so get cracking & I am totally in my element.

[pauldee]

Tell me about it.

Some of them seem to think it's like playing Dungeons and Dragons & every single rule has to be followed to the letter.

Don't even get me started on the fecking shirt sizes routine.

I have to put my hand up here & admit that when I find myself in such a culture, I am not exactly 100% onboard and this probably shows.

As I said earlier, give me a client who says here's what we want, you've got 3 months to do it so get cracking & I am totally in my element.

But this never happens???? If only we lived in a world where clients knew what they wanted and didn't change their minds from week to week. It's not even the clients fault. The business/market may change in those 3 months and therefore the requirements and priorities change. This is exactly the problem that agile was designed to address.

Ok so this applies to enterprise development more than anything else. If you're in engineering/industry then your requirements are probably more stable. In which case agile is not a suitable methodology.

[perplexed]

But this never happens???? If only we lived in a world where clients knew what they wanted and didn't change their minds from week to week. It's not even the clients fault. The business/market may change in those 3 months and therefore the requirements and priorities change. This is exactly the problem that agile was designed to address.

Ok so this applies to enterprise development more than anything else. If you're in engineering/industry then your requirements are probably more stable. In which case agile is not a suitable methodology.

But the point still is that most companies use Agile because it's a cool buzzword when they've little idea how to use it effectively.

I've tired of 45 minute standup meetings; I just manually switch off, think of the many things I could have got done. Count heads, wait till it's my turn then provide the verbal "report" with an absolute and total Brevity. I break the rules by sitting down. If people want to waffle about minutae of things utterly irrelevant, talk about the weather, whatever then I'm going to be comfortable.

[adubya]

But the point still is that most companies use Agile because it's a cool buzzword when they've little idea how to use it effectively.

I've tired of 45 minute standup meetings; I just manually switch off, think of the many things I could have got done. Count heads, wait till it's my turn then provide the verbal "report" with an absolute and total Brevity. I break the rules by sitting down. If people want to waffle about minutae of things utterly irrelevant, talk about the weather, whatever then I'm going to be comfortable.

45 minute standups ? 15 mins tops.

[perplexed]

45 minute standups ? 15 mins tops.

You know that, I know that... if they want to pay money for me to spend 30 minutes of doing nothing...

[MicrosoftBob]

Tell me about it.

Some of them seem to think it's like playing Dungeons and Dragons & every single rule has to be followed to the letter.

Don't even get me started on the fecking shirt sizes routine.

I have to put my hand up here & admit that when I find myself in such a culture, I am not exactly 100% onboard and this probably shows.

As I said earlier, give me a client who says here's what we want, you've got 3 months to do it so get cracking & I am totally in my element.

Ah shirt sizes where half the team think it means hours required and half the team doesn't and only the scrum master with no IT experience is really taking it seriously anyway

[pauldee]

It sounds like you have all been in situations where Agile has been done badly. I have been involved in projects where it's done well and it's great: all those pointless requirements that no one will use get given low priority and in the end never get implemented.

I have also seen it done badly, in which case it is a waste of time at best, and a hindrance at worst, but that is the fault of the implementation, no the methodology itself.

[SueEllen]

It sounds like you have all been in situations where Agile has been done badly. I have been involved in projects where it's done well and it's great: all those pointless requirements that no one will use get given low priority and in the end never get implemented.

I have also seen it done badly, in which case it is a waste of time at best, and a hindrance at worst, but that is the fault of the implementation, no the methodology itself.

I've been in both.

[Danny495]

Hi
I'm happy as well, working from my home coverforsakring. Sometimes I have to go to other countries but still best option. If you complain about money, maybe you shouldn't spend money on drugs and girls.