Reply to: Agile/SCRUM and IR35

[too_many_details]

regardless of what you think of this whole Agile movement (of which SCRUM falls under), it is a fact that it currently is commanding the best software development rates outside Investment Banking.

Personally, I have found that I enjoy my work more and feel less stressed working in this way. I'll leave the evaluation of its effectiveness over typical waterfall methodologies to the bean counters.

R

[NotAllThere]

Pair programming is part of Extreme Programming (XP), not Agile or Scrum.

Yeah, I didn't RC... The rest was true though.

[thunderlizard]

Scrum isn't so bad - actually I think if a person with common sense but no project methodology knowledge was suddenly given a load of work to get through, some people to do it, and somebody else to advise on what needed doing first - they might well independently invent Scrum. It is one of the simpler ones.


Some of the key points of Scrum are
-the developers choose what to work on
-the developers manage themselves
-the deliverables are split up until they're small enough for 1 person to handle, so there's minimal 'collaboration'
Done properly, it's all about giving people space to do things, and "direction and control" should be conspicuous by its absence.

But as usual, it all depends on how you're doing it.

[NickFitz]

It's not a managementspeak, it's geek-intelligentsia-programmerspeak. There's some neat ideas (IIRC, for example, that two people working together on one item is more efficient that two people working seperately on two items), and for some projects it could work very well. But most will treat is as the hoped for universal panacea, not do it properly and bin it after a few years.

Pair programming is part of Extreme Programming (XP), not Agile or Scrum.

[Devlin]

Scrum / SCUM agile .. its all a hunk of junk

From what I'm seeing of it, I have to agree. Amazes me how enthusiastic some seem to be about it though!

[SueEllen]

Thanks for this - looks like a trip to Waterstones may be in order before someone laughs at me for not knowing about this - anyone got a book recommendation? Sorry for the thread hijack btw.

Save your money and google.

[someone has my name]

Scrum / SCUM agile .. its all a hunk of junk

[Peoplesoft bloke]

It's not a managementspeak, it's geek-intelligentsia-programmerspeak. There's some neat ideas (IIRC, for example, that two people working together on one item is more efficient that two people working seperately on two items), and for some projects it could work very well. But most will treat is as the hoped for universal panacea, not do it properly and bin it after a few years.

Thanks for this - looks like a trip to Waterstones may be in order before someone laughs at me for not knowing about this - anyone got a book recommendation? Sorry for the thread hijack btw.

[NotAllThere]

It's not a managementspeak, it's geek-intelligentsia-programmerspeak. There's some neat ideas (IIRC, for example, that two people working together on one item is more efficient that two people working seperately on two items), and for some projects it could work very well. But most will treat is as the hoped for universal panacea, not do it properly and bin it after a few years.

[Bluebird]

Oh right, what my ex-colleague used to call ultra complex implementations with a project timescale of one nanosecond - just the usual stuff, then.

yeah, usual thing - they just give it a different name every couple of months when a load of projects go tits-up...

confuses the users no end...

[Peoplesoft bloke]

it means you do stuff on the back of a fag packet friday lunchtime, and Go Live on monday morning....

Oh right, what my ex-colleague used to call ultra complex implementations with a project timescale of one nanosecond - just the usual stuff, then.

[Bluebird]

Ahem

What the crikey is this new managementspeak.

Proud to say I've never heard of it - but curious to know what utter utter utter nonsense they've dreamt up now.......

it means you do stuff on the back of a fag packet friday lunchtime, and Go Live on monday morning....

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Another team at my client's site is phasing in Agile management practices of which SCRUM is a key parts. With Sprints and fluid task allocation the order of the day with Scrum teams, it occurs to me that it could be deemed more "employee like" that having specific projects to work on.

What are people's thoughts on this?

Ahem

What the crikey is this new managementspeak.

Proud to say I've never heard of it - but curious to know what utter utter utter nonsense they've dreamt up now.......

[ratewhore]

I would have thought an industry recognised way of working is IR35 neutral. However, the devil is in the detail as SueEllen rightly says...

[Devlin]

Good question. Not sure about that level of detail. I'm guessing it will be rolled out to my team in the next few months so will have to find out what it means for me.