[p4wnc6]

I actually ask during interviews if a company uses any type of Agile/Scrum/Kanban/"sprint cycle" workflow or uses JIRA/Asana/other Agile-focused metric trackers -- and immediately reject doing any more rounds of interviews with that company if they do. I'd say about 80% or so of the companies I speak to get rejected immediately just for this reason alone.

I've found that this is one of the very best indications that a given company has dysfunctional management, doesn't prioritize engineering quality or craftsmanship, views software labor as a cost center of the business instead of a value center, and views programmers as easily replaceable commodity workers.

I totally grant that it's possible I am passing on some good companies when I do this. But the false negative rate has to be extremely low, since so many other companies with these tools have repeatedly demonstrated themselves to be horribly managed, talent-wasting career killers. I'm happy to suffer the false negative rate just to be super safe that I don't end up in another such place in my career. And to boot, even though I've turned down follow-up interviews with many places because of this, I've never regretted doing so, and have often learned after the fact that there was significant engineering dysfunction in that firm from other sources.

I would really love it if either DeMarco & Lister (who wrote Peopleware) or Jackall (who wrote Moral Mazes) would add new sections to their books specifically about the invalidity of Agile-like management techniques, and the way they are used for 'dexterity with symbols' (as Jackall puts it in Moral Mazes) to create political arguments for micromanagement and keep developers distracted, while devaluing their labor and disconnecting the field from the spirit of craftsmanship.

[serge2k]

> But the false negative rate has to be extremely low

How would you know, you reject them offhand.

Thankfully, that sounds win/win.

[p4wnc6]

In some cases, I have known other people who worked in the companies and attested to the poorness of the work environment, or been able to read large and very public accounts of employee discontent within them.

Another good indicator of the same things is the unnecessary use of open-plan offices, especially if combined with a lack of willingness to permit significant time working from home.