[headmelted]

I quite like this as a good resource:

https://agilemanifesto.org/.

Whatever gets the work done and doesn't cause unnecessary burdens while adding no measurable value is good with me at this point.

I'd make do with anything but Agile, which needs to be shot. Out of a cannon. Into the Sun.

[christopoulos]

Genuinely curious, what is it that you don’t like about Agile? I mean, the concept, the processes? The lack of something or too much of something?

[GordonS]

Not the parent, but I agree fully with their point - agile is good; but there is a difference between "agile" and "Agile".

Especially in the enterprise world, agile has been overran by worthless certifications and so-called "Agile" consultants/experts, who broadly fall into 1 of 2 groups: project managers looking to cash in, and technically inept "senior developers" looking to cash in by turning consultant.

Every one of which has their own incredibly dogmatic view of what it means to be Agile. And all of whom are skilled bullshit artists, adept at gaining the ear of upper management, proficienct at indoctrinating them into "the one true way"TM. Every one proficient at making developers miserable - all while charging exorbitant fees, and leaving just in time so management is convinced the failures are down to the heathen devs not following The Agile Way.

Standups where you literally have to stand up (simultaneously, even if spread across 3 continents and numerous time zones) and invariably go on for an hour, constant complaints (and of course meetings) about stories not finished before the sprint ends, endless meetings about the line on the bastard burndown chart, backlog refinements that last days or even weeks (invariably followed by story refinements that last days), telling the devs "decisions are up to the team... but you will choose my way", meaningless identikit retrospectives when the devs just want out so they can actually ship something...

Honestly, I'm not sure whether these "consultants" actually believe the dogmatic, quasi-religious snake-oil BS they are selling, or they know full well, but know just as well how much money they make from it.

All I know, is these people give agile a bad reputation, and bring absolute misery to many a developer.

[headmelted]

GordonS gets it.

This is true. Not long ago (about six months) a project I was working on was assigned a scrum-master (tip: You can just be the person saying "any blockers?" and "next". You don't need to be master of anything.)

Genuinely nice person, it's anecdotal, but just making it clear I'm not bashing them. Regardless, after a stand-up in the very first week they just volunteered that they had no technical background whatsoever, and couldn't write a line of code. They were at the same time actively making architecture decisions outside of the stand-ups and relaying this to the P/O.

It was a nightmare.

The above is right, Agile (with a capital A) has become little more than a way for non-technical people to have lucrative careers in software by destroying the otherwise promising careers of technical people in software.

[procinct]

Appreciate you explaining this point further, I didn’t realise there was a difference between ‘agile’ vs ‘Agile’ and the only other methodology I had heard of was waterfall which also seems to be universally disliked.

[james_s_tayler]

"Agile" is just an instance of "agile" which is an abstract concept. Hence you can't actually do "agile". Therefore every form of agile you see is "Agile" and they're quote "doing agile wrong".

Read the manifesto. It literally says handful of almost completely meaningless, unimplementable things.

Any attempt to actually take that and turn it into something is destined to be sharply divorced from reality.

But the real fun comes when you do "white water rafting" style development. This is when there is all the ceremony of "Agile" (read: a "fast paced environment") with all the planning of waterfall and absolutely everything is top priority. You and your coworkers are constantly thrown around trying not to smash into rocks or capsize the boat, meanwhile being pulled violent in every direction. Somehow you continue to make your way down the river eventually with fewer and fewer co-workers as she casualties mount.

Fun times.

The actual methodology is completely irrelevant. Working under terrible management is terrible. Working under terrific management is terrific.

[mycall]

You should read the original waterfall paper as it is basically agile in spirit: http://www-scf.usc.edu/~csci201/lectures/Lecture11/royce1970...

[wrycoder]

Waterfall had its place in military and aerospace, where the requirements and API were well-defined, and to a lesser extent in life-critical medical systems development.

But in even those cases, it was largely replaced by Spiral, which is similar to agile and pre-dates it.

Edit: Spiral is like going down the Waterfall two or more times. Similar to agile, but formally documented, with management and customer sign-off up the line, and with a much longer cycle time.

[tempguy9999]

My experience of that which has been called 'agile' is that it's an excuse by programmers not to do the boring stuff, so they can got straight into the coding.

Not to plan, or even think too much, definitely not to document (sometimes not write anything down at all), often not to test except in a token form and sometimes not even that.

Is that agile? That's how 'agile' has been done where I work anyway. Maybe I've been unlucky but 'agile' like that is a loathsome, unprofessional practice that can't produce good results.

[christopoulos]

Yes, I understand. While I’ve never only attributed that to Agile alone, but also this sort of brogrammer-code-is-the-real-product, it sometimes feels like a maturing industry sort of rolled back into its teenage years. Diagrams? Solution models (up front thinking)? Document for future reference? Nah, we don’t want to do that.

It’s sad. Just recently had an experience like this with developers I manage. I do loathe the brogrammer culture more than anything...

[Retric]

A significant chunk of software is a dead simple one off and does not need much in the way of design or maintenance. At the other end you have software that risks human lives and or billions in damages.

Picking the right process for where each project fits on that continuum is surprisingly difficult. Cowboy coding can be anything from a horrific idea to the most efficient setup, unfortunately people are rarely flexible enough to know the difference.

[christopoulos]

That’s why I always push the message that we choose the right amount of bureaucracy for the task at hand. Simple change / feature? No need to make a lot of documents for that? Fluffy idea that several people needs to work on? We need some mocks, diagrams and take requirements from client.

I think that’s a healthy way of doing it, but sadly many almost have to be pushed to do it, even with bigger things.

[tempguy9999]

> feels like a maturing industry sort of rolled back into its teenage years

Beautiful description! That is so on the nail.

[mongol]

There are cult-like tendencies in part of the agile community. I don't see it in the teams I have worked in, but in forums on LinkedIn, by those that see their career as agile specialists, experts in coaching the true way to perform agile software development. Many of them see themselves as catalysts, and that they with clever questioning will make teams grow. They don't themselves want to have a delivery responsibility, but they want to stand on the sidelines and "coach".

[christopoulos]

That I can understand and I’ve seen that too. And now Scaled Agile Framework is coming in hot as the enterprise version.

I’m actually proud of the parts of agile we work with, which primarily enables us to react changing needs and priorities quickly (unlike heavy waterfall).

After 22+ years in the industry I’ve come to realize that any new concept or concept that gets traction (CQRS, Event storming, AI) will produce a religious following. It’s kinda sad, because causes as lot of noise and friction.