AGILE

[Cenobite]

I'd hand in my notice there and then. What a load of nonsense.

Unfortunately it was my first contract so I put up with it.

[tranceporter]

At the same place I was handed a user story which had exactly one word on it ("Inversions") and told I was a clever lad who shouldn't need any help and if I was seen talking to other parts of the business to find out what implementing "Inversions" meant then I'd be sacked because we were so up against it. Normally a user story card is the promise of a future conversation with someone who understands the business requirement but hey. I should have just done a handstand in front of them and said my job is done.

I guess the problem here is that boss was confusing working alone and taking responsibility as "being AGILE". It was same in the digital media agency i worked a year ago. They were supposedly "pairing" me with the guy sitting next to me (he was permie), and he did not pair at all, so I completed all work on my own. At the end of the day, he would just apologise to me "for being a bear, but he was really busy", and in the next day scrum, just lie about pairing with me. So the managers eventually thought that I needed a lot of "pairing" to get my work, which forced me to clarify the reality to them. They were a bunch of nerds working on a cash strapped project anyway.

[Cenobite]

I guess the problem here is that boss was confusing working alone and taking responsibility as "being AGILE".

At this place there was no such thing as pair programming: they just didn't want to me to use up any of the time of anyone else because everyone was so busy. Somehow I was meant to work out the acceptance criteria and everything from a one word card. In the end I just had to talk to people about what was expected.

On pairing, I've only ever worked at one "Agile" place that's allowed it. In fact we even had triplet programming. It makes me laugh because they think it's a waste of resource to have multiple people working on something but it's lack of understanding which is the bottleneck, not the typing, and understanding is often aided by having two heads on the problem.

[SussexSeagull]

I think the worst places to work are those which say they're Agile but aren't. I'd prefer an honest-to-goodness Waterfall project than that.

I contracted at one place when deadlines were so tight we were told we'd be sacked immediately if we were seen writing test code. Luckily we weren't effectively micromanaged so when the boss strolled off we'd work as normal. Stand ups were essentially just reporting to the boss and everyone was bored waiting for their turn and addressed him directly.

At the same place I was handed a user story which had exactly one word on it ("Inversions") and told I was a clever lad who shouldn't need any help and if I was seen talking to other parts of the business to find out what implementing "Inversions" meant then I'd be sacked because we were so up against it. Normally a user story card is the promise of a future conversation with someone who understands the business requirement but hey. I should have just done a handstand in front of them and said my job is done.

I maintain I have never worked in a proper Agile environment. There is something to be said for a properly implemented Agile environment but in my experience it is used as an excuse not to produce any documentation or attempt planning.

[adubya]

Was it this:-


?


"You will be working alongside an MVP and well respect author on Agile and .NET / C# development. " set the BS indicator off

[Cenobite]

I maintain I have never worked in a proper Agile environment. There is something to be said for a properly implemented Agile environment but in my experience it is used as an excuse not to produce any documentation or attempt planning.

Same as: some places have been more Agile than others but none of them have been anywhere close.

I think Agile is at its worst when you're working for a consultancy producing something for another company. No client wants to not know how much they're paying and when it'll be done. I'd be interested in anyone's opinions on how to draft an Agile contract between two companies. I think perhaps providing programming as a service, for a set time period like an iteration, rather than a finished product. But I still don't think any clients would go for it.

I thought it might work better internally or when you're in the product market place without a contractual client but it's no better. At one place the management of my department was saying to the board "we're doing this project Agile" and the board must have just been saying "yeah whatever, just make sure it has all these features, costs less than this much and is done by Christmas". That December was the closest a whole programming department came to a collective nervous breakdown.

[The Spartan]

Haha: by being the anal Cucumber guy. Ooh err!

Sounds painful

[tranceporter]

Was it this:-


?


"You will be working alongside an MVP and well respect author on Agile and .NET / C# development. " set the BS indicator off

Not sure !

[swamp]

I maintain I have never worked in a proper Agile environment. There is something to be said for a properly implemented Agile environment but in my experience it is used as an excuse not to produce any documentation or attempt planning.

I've worked in many genuine agile environments for a very long time. The last contract, however, was an eye opener in how bad things can be when the client uses agile as an excuse to not figure out what they want.

Given a bunch of decent developers, QAs and BAs, I'd take pretty much any dinosaur old-fashioned, heavy-weight waterfall project over a bad agile implementation.

[cojak]

Very interesting...which client was this btw?

But seriously, from what i've gathered as a know nothing agent, if your opinion of agile isnt - lets implement the basics and then see what works for the team - then its the wrong opinion.

So that tech manager is a tool. Right?

+1