Minister defends "agile" in parliament

[SueEllen]

Over the past 3 months ever since I started re-positioning myself as a contractor from perm I have been inundated by the requests from recruiters ramming 'Agile Business Analyst' roles past me in the 'Ministry of X', 'Department of Z' and 'Y London Council'.

I did one interview with Scotland Yard. I do have plenty of Agile experience, and have been certified so it helps. But what has struck me is just how little these guys know about this, and they are trying to deliver big projects while having very little ideas on how to go about the daily tasks. The questions they were asking, basic things like 'how do you write a user story'. Its almost like trying to force an esteemed classic Savile Row tailor to suddenly design super trendy catwalk outfits which involve shiny gold pants and Velcro ... not a match made in heaven.

Needless to say I got the gig very easily, 30 minutes on my way home got the call. Did not go for it because the whole thing seemed messy. The money was really good, I was surprised that so much public tax payer finances is being spent on this.

How to you think the likes of accenture etc make their money? In your case you just move on when it's clear the project is a mess.

Maybe these ministers and MPs need to be trained on agile themselves and then they can decide if its really what the public sector needs right now. And if so, how to best go about rolling it out...

Ministers and MPs don't need to be trained in any software methodology.

They just need to be taught then told repeatedly that just because they have an idea it won't make a good software solution. Also when they have decided on an idea for a software solution like with building a bridge or underground train system they cannot keep changing what they want when people are actually working on it.

[Boo]

Mostly stuff that the educated business users cannot visualise is nonsense in agile, communications protocols etc, I have seen these done in Agile and its a nonsense. Agile is also nonsense in package implementation and customisation where you need to lean on the strengths and weaknesses of the package. And so much more.

Whatever you're on I hope you're vaping it and not smoking it in a chillum.

Boo2

[KayMan]

I have just been watching James Brokenshire MP in front of a parliamentary select committee. Talking about various issues in immigration and passports.
Anyways the thing that really stood out was how little he knows about the IT approaches he is defending.
In answer to questions about "agile" the methodology his response was its all about phased work, and phased releases. What a lot of nonsense. Phased work can be a part of many approaches, including waterfall and agile, but is not something that sets "agile" apart. It's clear the rumours of how crap "agile" can be have reached the committee members, but again they don’t appear to have the basic understanding of why it's just as bad as the old approaches, as implemented in the public sector, or any understanding of which projects or parts of projects are best suited to it.
Really that clown Liam Maxwell and the cabinet office ramming this stuff down people's throats is a shambles, and not helping at all.
The real problems with public sector IT being a bit simpler to understand, but it's not much to do with the methodology, and everything to do with hiring the wrong people into the wrong posts.
So as usual the immigration and passport IT projects are late, failing, etc. and apparently "agile" is going to improve that, my arse.
Give me strength
I do think it was a clever trick calling it "agile", as agile the business word in the dictionary was a very admirable thing to be before this methodology highjacked it. Rather like calling a methodology "motherhood and applepies". Shame the "agile" methodology is often not "Able to think and understand quickly" as the word implies.

Over the past 3 months ever since I started re-positioning myself as a contractor from perm I have been inundated by the requests from recruiters ramming 'Agile Business Analyst' roles past me in the 'Ministry of X', 'Department of Z' and 'Y London Council'.

I did one interview with Scotland Yard. I do have plenty of Agile experience, and have been certified so it helps. But what has struck me is just how little these guys know about this, and they are trying to deliver big projects while having very little ideas on how to go about the daily tasks. The questions they were asking, basic things like 'how do you write a user story'. Its almost like trying to force an esteemed classic Savile Row tailor to suddenly design super trendy catwalk outfits which involve shiny gold pants and Velcro ... not a match made in heaven.

Needless to say I got the gig very easily, 30 minutes on my way home got the call. Did not go for it because the whole thing seemed messy. The money was really good, I was surprised that so much public tax payer finances is being spent on this.

Maybe these ministers and MPs need to be trained on agile themselves and then they can decide if its really what the public sector needs right now. And if so, how to best go about rolling it out...

[CoolCat]

Agile is not an excuse for poor requirements management or poor control.

I am actually an Agile Practitioner and it does wind me up when you see this rubbish in the press.

The whole point of Agile is that you can get 80% done in 20% of the time because you are not going to go to the nth degree in requirements before you start to develop.

So you take your first requirements set and look at what can be developed, develop, test, redevelop then release. Whilst the dev/test team are doing that further requirements can be gathered/existing requirements can be honed

However

1 You must have a clear goal of what the project is to deliver otherwise people think they can just add in new requirements and the goal of the project is changed to suit different needs.

2 There is a risk that you can develop something only for a late requirement to come along and screw it all up - again clearly defined up front requirements are still something required by any project/piece of work regardless of the methodology.

Works best when talking about software development projects but can be applied to any project where people are willing to work together to get the right outcome and not hide their laziness/lack of understanding behind documents and red tape.

I have been around a lot and know the pros and cons.

Agile is certainly not the answer to everything, or a solution to the key reasons public sector projects routinely go smelly. Mostly stuff that the educated business users cannot visualise is nonsense in agile, communications protocols etc, I have seen these done in Agile and its a nonsense. Agile is also nonsense in package implementation and customisation where you need to lean on the strengths and weaknesses of the package. And so much more.

I was not really trying to kick off a methodology debate, just expressing amazement at the gap between reality and the ministers defending it.

[SussexSeagull]

There are normally lots of requirements in any system which are not open to negotiation.
If the nature of the project is regulatory though, fixed scope, fixed end-date, and each change is discrete and largely independent of the others - then applying agile methodologies is generally not going to help much. And if you do something like Scrum, then you're completely wasting your time (which is obviously the antithesis of 'Agile').

I've just done one of those bulltulip projects.

I found it curious that Agile seems to have finally reached the City while most projects are probably unsuitable for it!

[original PM]

Agile is not an excuse for poor requirements management or poor control.

I am actually an Agile Practitioner and it does wind me up when you see this rubbish in the press.

The whole point of Agile is that you can get 80% done in 20% of the time because you are not going to go to the nth degree in requirements before you start to develop.

So you take your first requirements set and look at what can be developed, develop, test, redevelop then release. Whilst the dev/test team are doing that further requirements can be gathered/existing requirements can be honed

However

1 You must have a clear goal of what the project is to deliver otherwise people think they can just add in new requirements and the goal of the project is changed to suit different needs.

2 There is a risk that you can develop something only for a late requirement to come along and screw it all up - again clearly defined up front requirements are still something required by any project/piece of work regardless of the methodology.

Works best when talking about software development projects but can be applied to any project where people are willing to work together to get the right outcome and not hide their laziness/lack of understanding behind documents and red tape.

[SpontaneousOrder]

How does Agile work in a regulated environment, i.e. where a lot of requirements are non-negotiable and not open to any interpretation?

There are normally lots of requirements in any system which are not open to negotiation.
If the nature of the project is regulatory though, fixed scope, fixed end-date, and each change is discrete and largely independent of the others - then applying agile methodologies is generally not going to help much. And if you do something like Scrum, then you're completely wasting your time (which is obviously the antithesis of 'Agile').

I've just done one of those bulltulip projects.

[SussexSeagull]

After being a bit of a bear on agile I recently joined a bank where they have 'gone agile' and (so far) it seems to work very well. Mind you I am on a UAT/Analytics team so most of our work is small items logged by the stakeholders in Jira, not massive projects that make agile more difficult.

They also hired an 'agile coach' who really knows his stuff to help get everyone up to speed. Much better than my previous role where managers would go "lets do it agile" with zero idea what that actually means. In fact the above Dilbert is actually my previous experience; to a lot of managers agile simply means "build me something without doing any analysis or documentation", like agile can miraculously solve the iron triangle issue of projects (quality vs speed vs cost) by magically delivering the best solution in the fastest time at the lowest cost simply by removing pesky things like planning, analysis, and documentation! Cue giant IT project FAIL.

It's never the methodology that is at fault, just the people. In the case of big govt projects, politics and the associated nepotism and cronyism that go hand in hand with politicians are always the problem.

How does Agile work in a regulated environment, i.e. where a lot of requirements are non-negotiable and not open to any interpretation?

[Stan.goodvibes]

After being a bit of a bear on agile I recently joined a bank where they have 'gone agile' and (so far) it seems to work very well. Mind you I am on a UAT/Analytics team so most of our work is small items logged by the stakeholders in Jira, not massive projects that make agile more difficult.

They also hired an 'agile coach' who really knows his stuff to help get everyone up to speed. Much better than my previous role where managers would go "lets do it agile" with zero idea what that actually means. In fact the above Dilbert is actually my previous experience; to a lot of managers agile simply means "build me something without doing any analysis or documentation", like agile can miraculously solve the iron triangle issue of projects (quality vs speed vs cost) by magically delivering the best solution in the fastest time at the lowest cost simply by removing pesky things like planning, analysis, and documentation! Cue giant IT project FAIL.

It's never the methodology that is at fault, just the people. In the case of big govt projects, politics and the associated nepotism and cronyism that go hand in hand with politicians are always the problem.

[PerfectStorm]

[SpontaneousOrder]

Most people in IT aren't really professionals. That's the problem I see.
I love agile software devlopment, but 90% of people who are supposedly "Agile" don't have a clue. Do they study in their own time in order to understand it and be better at their job (i.e. professional)?
No. They just learn a new vocabulary and then expect that a new vocabulary will somehow magically increase their productivity and reduce the chances of their project failing.

If you're lucky enough to work with guys that really get it, then you can learn on the job. Unfortunately though most companies just send their guys on some snakeoil salesman's CSM course, and then that moron spreads his moronity throughout his colleagues, who spread it among their new colleagues when they move job.

Very few make the effort to study why their ****ed up methodology isn't giving the gains they were promised, and so never realise that they're just the IT equivalent of a religious fundamentalist who hopes that their faith will somehow make everything gravy.

For 90% of people (maybe more) "Agile" has nothing to do with agility.

[DaveB]

This is where you went wrong. Leave 'em to it, there'll be a new lot along next year to start the handwringing over again.

Indeed , and rumour has it that Liam will be looking to get a seat in Parliament so would have to step down as soon as he declares he's standing to avoid a conflict of interests.

[barrydidit]

I have just been watching James Brokenshire MP in front of a parliamentary select committee.

This is where you went wrong. Leave 'em to it, there'll be a new lot along next year to start the handwringing over again.

If he'd pickup up anything at all, he'd have told them there was a 'Lessons Learned Log' to guard against the possibility of future ballsups.

[CoolCat]

I have just been watching James Brokenshire MP in front of a parliamentary select committee. Talking about various issues in immigration and passports.
Anyways the thing that really stood out was how little he knows about the IT approaches he is defending.
In answer to questions about "agile" the methodology his response was its all about phased work, and phased releases. What a lot of nonsense. Phased work can be a part of many approaches, including waterfall and agile, but is not something that sets "agile" apart. It's clear the rumours of how crap "agile" can be have reached the committee members, but again they don’t appear to have the basic understanding of why it's just as bad as the old approaches, as implemented in the public sector, or any understanding of which projects or parts of projects are best suited to it.
Really that clown Liam Maxwell and the cabinet office ramming this stuff down people's throats is a shambles, and not helping at all.
The real problems with public sector IT being a bit simpler to understand, but it's not much to do with the methodology, and everything to do with hiring the wrong people into the wrong posts.
So as usual the immigration and passport IT projects are late, failing, etc. and apparently "agile" is going to improve that, my arse.
Give me strength
I do think it was a clever trick calling it "agile", as agile the business word in the dictionary was a very admirable thing to be before this methodology highjacked it. Rather like calling a methodology "motherhood and applepies". Shame the "agile" methodology is often not "Able to think and understand quickly" as the word implies.