[transreal]

What I don't like about agile is its an awful approach for building large complicated products.

The focus should not be on time management, that's not why software fails, it fails due to bad design.

The "ongoing conversation" developers should have should be about modules, objects, interfaces and algorithms, not about user stories. And refactoring the system to better handle new features should be encouraged, not thought of in terms of "how does this advance a user story".

User stories should be input into the exhaustive design process, and then the design should drive the development tasks.

I'm expecting push back on this, I'd probably go as far to say that for a large team on a large project 1/3 to 1/2 of a Sprint should be spent designing, and the remainder of the time coding.

Writing tests fits in this "designing" bucket for me. TDD is a great way to flesh out how the system should be structured.