Non Agile Technical Roles

[The Plantswoman]

Hi all,

I'm fairly entrenched in the technical development arena and have witnessed a pretty much universal drift towards agile / scrum methodologies.

I still wish to stay in a hands on technical role but was wondering if there were other areas that haven't taken the whole agile/scrum hype on board.

BI or BAU type stuff for instance? Or is it all pretty much client specific?

Would be keen to hear your experiences.

[LondonManc]

I'm always amused by firms insisting on delivering things via agile then advertising for a project manager.

Agile is either done properly or used as an excuse by manager to not have to commit to signing off a specification document.

[The Plantswoman]

I'm always amused by firms insisting on delivering things via agile then advertising for a project manager.

Agile is either done properly or used as an excuse by manager to not have to commit to signing off a specification document.

My experiences have not been especially positive.

I invariably end up performing a lot more unproductive tasks and the actual real work tends to be served up in bite sized chunks meaning that everything feels very "bitty" and I never build up a good head of steam as I may have done in a non Agile role where perhaps I'd have been assigned a much more significant piece of work and left to self manage, to a certain extent.

[LondonManc]

My experiences have not been especially positive.

I invariably end up performing a lot more unproductive tasks and the actual real work tends to be served up in bite sized chunks meaning that everything feels very "bitty" and I never build up a good head of steam as I may have done in a non Agile role where perhaps I'd have been assigned a much more significant piece of work and left to self manage, to a certain extent.

I'd be wary of Agile projects being inside IR35, given the amount of D&C that is potentially involved. It's a fine line for some. I guess it depends what you're delivering though.

[VillageContractor]

Depends on the client and sometimes project. I've been in companies where half is waterfall and half Agile.

If you want pure waterfall environments then large organisations are probably your best bet.

[eek]

All projects eventually descend into panic management... As such agile is safer as at least you understand that priorities will change as those who panics loudest takes priority....

[cojak]

All projects eventually descend into panic management... As such agile is safer as at least you understand that priorities will change as those who panics loudest takes priority....

Soooo true....

[stek]

I've been in IT since 1990-ish and I've no idea what 'Agile' or 'Scrum' is. Mainly cos IDGAF.

What are they (in easy one liners pls)?

[SimonMac]

I've been in IT since 1990-ish and I've no idea what 'Agile' or 'Scrum' is. Mainly cos IDGAF.

What are they (in easy one liners pls)?

JFDI

[VectraMan]

I've been in IT since 1990-ish and I've no idea what 'Agile' or 'Scrum' is. Mainly cos IDGAF.

What are they (in easy one liners pls)?

In theory: way to get rid of Project Managers and let the developers work more effectively.
In practice: way for Project Managers to charge more for their services by redefining themselves as Agile Coaches or Scrum Masters and put more obstacles in the way of the developers.

At my client they haven't learned anything about software since 1972, so you can certainly avoid modern techniques if that's your plan.