Reply to: Does agile make you uncomfortable?

[GreenLabel]

Damn right.

Gobby know ****-alls like you are ten-a-penny, fortunately I can sniff you out before you even get to interview stage.

Give it a rest already. You're getting hysterical.

[d000hg]

Sorry love, reality check.

If I'm paying the bill you do it my way.

So you're a typical micromanaging middle-manager type then? What a curveball

[minestrone]

Agile is hilarious with bobs, they cannot be left alone to work on a task with minimal instruction and be expected to complete it on their own steam.

[Scoobos]

Nope - I'm a Scrum Master and I'm an oik.

Didn't work in Berkshire in 2006 did you? ;-)

[Mich the Tester]

Once you start assigning roles to people, you're clearly into BS territory. For me, the positive things are keeping close to release quality through the development cycle (i.e. don't leave your testing and bugfixing to the end), and the continual re-evaluation which ultimately results in a better product, and of course everybody knows that trying to specify something big and complicated in advance just doesn't work.

But I've yet to see any evidence that there's any benefit whatsoever to working in sprints.

The problem as always is people getting hung up on blindly following a process even when it clearly is doing more harm than good. It doesn't have to be "Agile" or "Not Agile"; you can choose to follow the good principles without engaging in all the BS.

That's precisely what Agile's supposed to prevent. 'Individuals and interactions over processes and tools'.

[redgiant]

WHS a bit!

I'll play my hand and say I hate it , I've worked on 6+ high profile projects using "scrum masters" and Agile methodologies and all but one was a MASSIVE failure, with costs escalating beyond anyones control.

The biggest issue I've seen is that people cannot budget properly with such massive requirement to have an infrastructure as "Agile" as the development team think they are. I've seen people go out and buy hardware thats needed for the release cycle in 4 weeks, then change their mind on whats required and leave the hardware depreciating for months on end.

Microsoft, Google et al aren't using it (I think google did experiment with it with Google Chrome and elements of chromebook development, but they've been failures in the Big G's eyes).

For me, the one time i saw it work, was the first time - it was very new and everyone was committed - now I think, as spod said (though not you G!!!) there are far to many know nothings, just jumping on the bandwagon as "Jedi Masters" or whatever crap they call themselves - creaming it and leaving after 1 release cycle.

Finally, in my rant of the day - Why is it that every single scrum master I've met (other than the successful one, co-incidentally) appears to have been schooled privately and posher than posh is posh... is this a new "Old boys" network forming already?

Agile, smagile...

I sympathise as I have similar issues here with my current clientco - although the scrum masters here don't seem to be posh boys/girls

My biggest issue with the current clientco's use of agile is the lack of up front planning (e.g. scope, costs, resources and timescales) when kicking off projects. The way agile is implemented here is that although there are about 50 projects on the go at any time here only 8 are deemed to be top priority. These 8 like many of the other on going projects haven't been planned sufficiently enough in advance they all suffered from huge scope creep and end up taking up more resources, time etc. that would have otherwise been used to deliver the other projects.

It's not uncommon here for a project to last 2-3 years longer than originally planned for as project stakeholders use agile as a way of getting what they want delivered quicker without having to fully justify it at the expense of other project's work being completed.

Argh!!!

[VectraMan]

Once you start assigning roles to people, you're clearly into BS territory. For me, the positive things are keeping close to release quality through the development cycle (i.e. don't leave your testing and bugfixing to the end), and the continual re-evaluation which ultimately results in a better product, and of course everybody knows that trying to specify something big and complicated in advance just doesn't work.

But I've yet to see any evidence that there's any benefit whatsoever to working in sprints.

The problem as always is people getting hung up on blindly following a process even when it clearly is doing more harm than good. It doesn't have to be "Agile" or "Not Agile"; you can choose to follow the good principles without engaging in all the BS.

[Lockhouse]

Finally, in my rant of the day - Why is it that every single scrum master I've met (other than the successful one, co-incidentally) appears to have been schooled privately and posher than posh is posh... is this a new "Old boys" network forming already?

Agile, smagile...

Nope - I'm a Scrum Master and I'm an oik.

[Scoobos]

It appears ion lots of ads, but very few really do it well. When it works, it's brilliant, but it needs top quality techies and minimal interference from management; how often do you find that combination?

WHS a bit!

I'll play my hand and say I hate it , I've worked on 6+ high profile projects using "scrum masters" and Agile methodologies and all but one was a MASSIVE failure, with costs escalating beyond anyones control.

The biggest issue I've seen is that people cannot budget properly with such massive requirement to have an infrastructure as "Agile" as the development team think they are. I've seen people go out and buy hardware thats needed for the release cycle in 4 weeks, then change their mind on whats required and leave the hardware depreciating for months on end.

Microsoft, Google et al aren't using it (I think google did experiment with it with Google Chrome and elements of chromebook development, but they've been failures in the Big G's eyes).

For me, the one time i saw it work, was the first time - it was very new and everyone was committed - now I think, as spod said (though not you G!!!) there are far to many know nothings, just jumping on the bandwagon as "Jedi Masters" or whatever crap they call themselves - creaming it and leaving after 1 release cycle.

Finally, in my rant of the day - Why is it that every single scrum master I've met (other than the successful one, co-incidentally) appears to have been schooled privately and posher than posh is posh... is this a new "Old boys" network forming already?

Agile, smagile...

[KaiserWilly]

I am an Agile coach. The bottom line: it is another American management fad. Maybe I've become very cynical, but as long as it keeps the contracts rolling, it's OK.

[Cr1spy]

... it's fine for the work to be organised into Stacks and Sprints, for Work Items and Bugs to be assigned to people ...

Work isn't assigned to people in Scrum. The empowered team members take ownership. Just saying like...

[Spacecadet]

I like the principle of it - just makes me worry about the perception of 'part and parcel' of client org.
And the idea that you learn about what you're doing next in the 'team' scrum...

Although in practice I work at a client to deliver a service the permies can't or don't have the skill set for - so I couldn't possibly be 'doing the same job as the permies'.

One practical way I see is if you undertake every piece of work utilising a specific skill/technology or a specific module that no permie would touch - but this again goes against some agile ethos ...

Thoughts?

the issues that I've had with it in the past are:
Client co went "Agile" whilst I was half way through a project. Suddenly I'm expected to join scrums everyday and, as all the teams projects were put into one big agile pot, I had to accept tasks which might not be part of the project I was brought in to work on

The second issue I have is that a pure agile approach means delivering a final solution by means of a thousand changes. Combine that with the possibility of tasks being assigned my importance to the next available person then you can have a lack of consistency which is made even worse when there is no proper team lead and the manager is hands off technical.

IMO any agile project needs strong team leaders to maintain discipline and ensure a consistant approach to delivering solutions , developers should not be free to just take a task and fulfil it as they see fit.

[Robinho]

I like it as the client is effectively liable to make sure what is being done is what is required. And any time wasted from them changing their mind is directly absorbed by them.

[VectraMan]

PermieCo "do Agile" in the sense of trying to specify everything in advance, insist everything has to be per spec, and the management refuse to allow any kind of feedback or testing to happen until the last few weeks of the project.

[FiveTimes]

I like the principle of it - just makes me worry about the perception of 'part and parcel' of client org.
And the idea that you learn about what you're doing next in the 'team' scrum...

Not at current clientco, I go to the planning stage meetings and decided what I want to do