Non Agile Technical Roles

[VillageContractor]

Most people dislike agile because they've sen it done wrong. I see a lot of Scrum Masters/PMs and Agile coaches who have gone on the 2 day CSM course and think they know everything.

It's even worse when you get companies who want to be agile but don't really want to do everything that makes them agile. They want stand ups and buzzwords but not the organisational change that will actually benefit them.

[ChrisFromGreece]

+1 to VillageContractor

The CSM, CSPO and CSD certifications from Scrum Alliance (and the similar ones offered by Scrum.org, etc.) are introductory courses where you attain basic knowledge of the framework and the particulars of a specific role.

Completing a 2-day course should never allow you to claim to be an Agile Coach and companies who are serious about their Agile Transformation should be a bit more diligent with their search for an Agile Coach. Experience as well as continuous education and contribution to the Agile community should be a few of the things to consider while recruiting for an Agile Coach.

To me it's similar to the tech certs. You are not a Java expert if you got the Oracle Java Cert and you are not automatically an Enterprise Architect cause you got the TOGAF cert.

[Cirrus]

Are you Shia or Sunni?

It's all religion.

I said to my boss "We're running in an agile way on Project X"

He got aggressive and said "You're agile: so where's your backlog; where's your kanban"

He runs a Scrum-type set-up with about 3 developers out of a team of 50; requirements have to be submitted 3 weeks before the sprint; lots of people standing up all the time and loads of post-it notes.

Agile originally meant two things. The first was anti-waterfall ie waterfall is a load of rubbish so consciously avoid all the nonsense bits (eg toolsets, frameworks, specs etc). The second bit - unfortunately - is try our alternative religion. The founder members were also the purveyors of their own methodologies - Scrum, XP, Crystal, DSDM etc.

The former is no good to pointy hats so the latter has prevailed: agile instead of saying Islam makes no sense in the modern world has merely substituted replacement religions.

[LondonManc]

There are some good tools and methods that Agile uses; rather that declaring the project as agile, declare it as hybrid; waterfall methodology with agile techniques that work in a waterfall environment. Use daily scrums and a story board for visibility and for short term stage-planning. Waterfall can fall victim to analysis paralysis but at least the senior management get a plan to hold someone accountable to.

[VillageContractor]

There are some good tools and methods that Agile uses; rather that declaring the project as agile, declare it as hybrid; waterfall methodology with agile techniques that work in a waterfall environment. Use daily scrums and a story board for visibility and for short term stage-planning. Waterfall can fall victim to analysis paralysis but at least the senior management get a plan to hold someone accountable to.

Agile uses a lot of smart and simple processes that can be used anywhere. Not all organisations can become agile on day 1 or day 365 so sometimes you have to tailor your adoption to suit you. But if it's done badly it will go horribly wrong.

[LondonManc]

Agile uses a lot of smart and simple processes that can be used anywhere. Not all organisations can become agile on day 1 or day 365 so sometimes you have to tailor your adoption to suit you. But if it's done badly it will go horribly wrong.

Exactly, which is why some orgs are simply better not doing agile but simply using some of the tools that have sprouted up around it but not using others.

[VillageContractor]

Exactly, which is why some orgs are simply better not doing agile but simply using some of the tools that have sprouted up around it but not using others.

Yes - but they need someone experienced who knows what to do and what not to do. That's where I come in

[tomtomagain]

To all you agile-haters out there.

How would you like to work? Describe your perfect environment.