AGILE

[tranceporter]

Just attended 2 back to back interviews today. First one was fine, but the second one was an eye opener. I had been warned by the agent that the company was seriously looking for contractors who "know" AGILE, and specflow and stuff. I am quite confident when it comes to my web dev skills (MVC3, Razor, TDD, BDD etc), and I have been working with Agile teams for the past 2-3 years. Suffice to say, this tech guy and product manager were absolute tools. A couple of the questions-answer sessions went like this:

Scenario 1:

Tech Guy: Lets do a roleplay here on Agile. I am the product owner. Then he points to the product manager, and says, she is your scrum master/manager. You are working on a story, and there is a small glitch due to lack of business spec, and you are blocked. What would you do?
Me: I would approach the scrum master, and explain the situation to her.
Scrum Master (the lady): I am busy.
Tech Guy: Then what do you do?
Me: I will approach the business owner, but that is a very rare case. Usually it should not come to this.
Tech Guy: Thats fine, that sort of thing will happen here. We just have 8 devs in total, and product manager and me, so this will happen.
Me: ok. So I go the business owner and ask him if he has a quick minute.
Tech Guy (in guise of owner): Not now, I am busy.
Me: Ok, so I send him an e-mail about my issue, and I give it an hour.
Tech Guy: OK, so I (the owner), do not respond in an hour. Then what?
Me: So I go in again, and ask him if he got a chance to read my e-mail.
Tech Guy (owner): No I did not. What it is about?
Me: I am working on xyz, and most of the stuff has been done, except for abc, because of some business rule missing. Could you spare me a moment and take a look?
Tech Guy (owner): I am really busy now. Can it wait till next week?
Me: Sure thing. I still have a few stories to work on, so I can catch up on this next week.
One week later (still roleplay scenario)
Me: Hi, do you have a moment?
Tech Guy (Owner): Yeah sure.
Me: Did you manage to find out what rule we might be missing?
Tech Guy (owner): Oh bugger! I forgot. Could not ask customer. What now?
Me: Well, it is only a small piece of functionality missing, so it should not affect the overall release. Is that ok with you so that we can add it to product backlog?
Tech Guy (owner): Yeah sure, that is ok.

Scenario 2 (after 15-20 minutes of rambling on other stuff, including mocking and user stories in Gherkin syntax on whiteboard):
Tech Guy: Have you heard of Epic?
Me: Yes, they are user stories which are too big to finish in one sprint and..
Tech Guy (interrupting and shaking his head): No.. no, they are stories which are so huge, that they need to be broken down. So if you had an epic story, whom would you approach?
Me: The scrum master, because..
Tech Guy (interrupting): The scrum master? why would you go to him? I do not care how things were done in your previous organization. I want your opinion on Agile. Why can't you break down the epic story yourselves?
Me (backtracking): Well, I could break down the stories myself, but..
Tech Guy (interrupting): But you said Scrum Master, I would consider your first answer. Why would you say Scrum Master?
Me: Because Scrum Master initially breaks requirements into user stories, and he made it epic, which he did not understand, so..
Tech Guy (interrupting, like a bad habit): Look, you are taking it somewhere else. Let me rephrase my question, and ask specifically. (He runs through the same scenario twice again)
Finally Tech Guy: You are the first person who used the whiteboard so well. When it came down to writing user stories, yours were the best. You should pat yourself on the back. But where you lacked was "your opinion of agile". You are contractor, so must have a limited company, right? I also used to have one when i was contracting.
Me: Yes, thats right.
Tech Guy: Then why don't you train yourself to learn Agile? If it were a permie, I would understand and train him. Why should I pay a premium price for you? (A very fair point finally, but completely mis-directed, since I am not attending the interview as Agile coach/evangelist/scrum master)
Me: Yes, I understand. (Why the hell would I want to train myself on Agile, when I am not professing myself to be an Agile Specialist?)
Tech Guy (By now he was rambling on and on, and the product manager lady was just looking at him and me with a sad expression): It's really a pity. You have your concepts about mocking, TDD, BDD pretty clear, it's just your own opinion of Agile. It's really a pity.
Me: No problem. Thanks for your time.

This was just a small part of the whole 1 hour charade, but has anyone experienced anything similar? I have attended many interviews before, and this was the first one that was so peculiar. I cannot understand how someone can expect an IT contractor dev, to know the ins and out of agile and read books about it? I reckon they were just trying to cut their costs and hire a scrum master cum developer in one, so that "I could bring something to the table" in his words. Needless to say, I was a bit ticked off when I left the building. I felt like I had wasted my time, and should have told him to shove it and walked out. At least I could have spend the remaining half an hour researching on Sunny Leone or the likes . End of the day, its just work and not life, but would be interesting to listen to other people's experiences.

Rant Over! Now flame me, lol.

[GB9]

Hmmm...you were drawn in there.

Suggested response should have been:

Tech Guy - so what is your opinion of Agile
You - over-rated pretentious BS
Tech Guy - why?
You - can you not plan and execute properly
Tech Guy - ermmmmm.....
You - thanks, have a nice day

Suggest doing this by phone as it saves travel costs

[tranceporter]

Hmmm...you were drawn in there.

Suggested response should have been:

Tech Guy - so what is your opinion of Agile
You - over-rated pretentious BS
Tech Guy - why?
You - can you not plan and execute properly
Tech Guy - ermmmmm.....
You - thanks, have a nice day

Suggest doing this by phone as it saves travel costs

hahaha! indeed! When I play it back in my mind, that would have been an apt response Apparently, the product manager was telling me that they have grown "exponentially" from 2 devs to 8 devs in 2 years, and from 8 employees to 26! I nearly facepalmed. Then the tech guy is telling me how he has implemented Agile in various companies he has worked for, and how every organization is different. He was probably the most pretentious person I have come across. A very warm smile when asking the question, and then a wolf's face when discussing. Just showing his true nature. By the end of the interview, even if they had said yes, and offered a contract at double the money, I would not have taken it. A sheer displeasure meeting these idiots, and a loss of money on my end. Well, interviews are a necessary evil..

[cojak]

Tools are tools are tools..

If it hadn't been Agile, it would have been SDLC, Big Data or some other gimmicky twaddle.

(I like Agile btw, but I wouldn't have managed the full hour.. )

[tranceporter]

Quite true. It's just that people get caught up neck deep in twaddle, and they become self professed evangelists. Little do they realise that they are going down the same path as "other organizations" in a bid to differentiate themselves and becoming too much of a purist. Analysis paralysis at best. They forget that Agile is just a tool to use, and not be a slave of that very tool. Tools are tools

[cojak]

Good return!

[GB9]

Quite true. It's just that people get caught up neck deep in twaddle, and they become self professed evangelists. Little do they realise that they are going down the same path as "other organizations" in a bid to differentiate themselves and becoming too much of a purist. Analysis paralysis at best. They forget that Agile is just a tool to use, and not be a slave of that very tool. Tools are tools

From your OP it seemed like he just wanted to demonstrate how much he knew. Wouldn't have been my idea of fun, although all tools have their place.

[Taita]

Quite true. It's just that people get caught up neck deep in twaddle, and they become self professed evangelists. Little do they realise that they are going down the same path as "other organizations" in a bid to differentiate themselves and becoming too much of a purist. Analysis paralysis at best. They forget that Agile is just a tool to use, and not be a slave of that very tool. Tools are tools

Well said. Too many tech managers get so wrapped up in the means they lose sight of the ends - especially when tools are new and fashionable! I guess they go home each day and bore their families to desparation.

[centurian]

Tech Guy: Then why don't you train yourself to learn Agile?

Because which version of Agile do you train on. Every Agile dev shop I've been in seems to run a slightly different dialect of Agile, yet also seems utterly convinced that their way is the definitive Agile. They can't all be right.

I bet if this chap went to an interview at another "strict Agile" place, he'd get taken apart.

[tranceporter]

Because which version of Agile do you train on. Every Agile dev shop I've been in seems to run a slightly different dialect of Agile, yet also seems utterly convinced that their way is the definitive Agile. They can't all be right.

I bet if this chap went to an interview at another "strict Agile" place, he'd get taken apart.

From whatever I have seen in smallish companies, especially digital media agencies, even though they practice AGILE, it all comes down to shouting and wrestling in the scrum meetings, if there is blockage or work not getting done. Infact in my current organization, there are still a couple of MD's who think that they should just fire all scrum masters and go back to the old way of shouting and getting things done.
One of the things that this guy was constantly harping about AGILE was "There is theory, then there is how organization implement it, and then there is your opinion of it. We want your opinion". I told him flat in the face that my opinion is what I have learned while working hands on in Agile environment. I cannot be arsed to read books about it, especially when my CV does not show me as an AGILE specialist or something of that kind.