Agile, Scrum, Kanban & IR35

[Spikeh]

Using the following from the attached link:

"For you, the contractor, to be subject to direction there is someone making you do your work in a certain way. This ‘director’ achieves this by giving you instructions, guidelines or advice as to how the work must be performed."

I don't see how prioritising requirements is making you do you work in a certain way?

You are given the priority of requirements, and you develop them in the way you see fit, not according to how a product owner see's fit.

If the stories are so granular that they literally are low level development tasks then the project has far greater issues and it's probably best to leave alone anyway, especially if the product owner is directing these tasks.

Aye, I mistook "control" for "direction" - see my reply to NLUK.

[pictavia]

I've worked in a few organisations where agile methodologies were used but membership excluded contractors. More recently, the majority of new contracts advertised in the private sector in my area seem to be looking for agile experience and many of the role descriptions imply SDC with reviews, standards, entrance tests and pair programming.

I don't have a problem with agile but I've yet to see agile implemented to specification and the biggest issue seems to be the assumption that the scrum master is a management role, often filled on a permanent basis by a line manager or pm, it just feels like a cargo cult or box ticking exercise.

As usual, it is important to find out why the client is looking for a contractor if they already have employees doing similar work in the agile team; if it is just a case of the work being short-term then disguised employment starts to become an issue.

[Spikeh]

As usual, it is important to find out why the client is looking for a contractor if they already have employees doing similar work in the agile team; if it is just a case of the work being short-term then disguised employment starts to become an issue.

Indeed - the first questions I ask are around scope and engagement.

Just spoke to another potential client where the agent described it as a generic dev role using Agile - pretty much BAU. Spoke to the client and its nothing like that - they have a team of devs that are experts in X, but they need an expert in Y to lead a new project and train existing staff on Y.

My problem is too much transparency. I need to be less trusting that agents know what they're selling, get myself a phone call / face to face meeting with the client THEN ascertain what the job spec actually is.