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by Surfactant7 1400 days ago
The biggest problem the anti-Agile crowd has is that:

1. They have no replacement methodology.

2. Even if they did, it has no name.

I get that lots of people dislike Agile and what it has come to mean in certain quarters. But I have yet to see a cogent, actionable response. Criticism is well and good, but changing a bad situation requires a better idea.

But "leave me, the beleaguered, over-meetinged, over-instrumented developer, the hell alone" is not a methodology, and it's not something any sane business is going to sign up for.

Many of the comments here against Agile really attack process itself. Not particular processes, but the notion that there is a process that is followed, the same way every time. And extra scorn is heaped on process attached to metrics.

4 comments

> They have no replacement methodology.

Yes, we do.

> it has no name.

Yes, it does - it's called the "Agile Manifesto". When MBA's do something called "Agile", they're actually doing Waterfall, but worse.

Imagine if you hired a cleaning crew to clean a warehouse but, instead of sweeping up the floor, they started opening bags of garbage and dumping them on the floor. Now imagine that you pointed out to them that what they're doing is the exact opposite of "cleaning". Now finally imagine that they say, "oh, you warehouse owners always say we're not doing 'cleaning' right".

> the anti-Agile crowd ... replacement methodology ... has no name ... lots of people dislike Agile

AIUI, there is no capital-A "Agile". It's a pilosophy, a mindset, a set of methodologies, not a brand or a product.

I actually think that could be a heuristic: Talks about capital-A "Agile" == doesn't get what "agile" is about.

Re: no replacement methodology

The way I remember the RUPs and FDDs of the world they actually addressed technical questions developers cared about. Starting from XP they have all been about managerial concerns. I'm not aware of a consistent explanation for that transition.

Agile replaced waterfall, so one of the replacements for agile would be waterfall.