[stilwelldotdev]

I've recently begun working within the Agile methodology for the first time and I'm not a big fan of it as a DevOps engineer at least. Going from roughly ~1 meeting per week to several meetings per day, spread across my morning, absolutely torpedoes my productivity.

Beyond that, there never seems to be anyone in these stand-ups that is capable of helping me because I'm doing stuff that nobody else in the company knows how to do. I'm learning as I go. So the meetings just tend to be me droning monotonously into the ether for no reason. If they did a quiz at the end of these things, everybody would fail it.

Also, engineers tend to have social anxiety. That's why a lot of us became engineers in the first place. It fills me with a small sense of dread knowing I have to speak publicly, every single day, and that creeping dread basically ruins my productivity in the hour of my morning before the meetings start, too.

I'm a lifelong nerd. I don't need motivation to make things. I don't need a 2 week learning period at the end of an iteration or whatever. I learn all of the time because I like to learn. I like to tinker. I like to automate things and make them more efficient. I deliver value just by getting the toys I want to play with.

Maybe Agile makes sense for lazy developers, but that's not what I am. I'm a force multiplier. You know how the special operations guys in the military get to have beards and hats and sunglasses? That's because they're not neophyte grunts trying to fake insanity to get out. They are highly skilled and they get shit done, so they get left alone to do their thing.

Agile feels like it sacrifices its special forces to make NCOs and ensigns look better. Sorry for all of these military references. I have no affiliation. I watched Band of Brothers a few times. It's just the closest thing to a human loss factory that I can think of.

[rawgabbit]

Special forces soldiers are highly skilled and extremely dedicated troops who are expected to fight behind enemy lines with no logistical or artillery support. You throw agile into the mix and these highly trained troops are now expected to create PowerPoint after action slides justifying every decision they took to an audience of non military folks.

The thing is management doesn’t view developers as special forces. They don’t think we are Obi Wan Kenobi. They think we are Jae Jar Binks and they can always order more developers and Congress will literally drop ship them into awaiting open plan offices. The bizarre thing is why don’t they hire these very same developers remotely instead of H1B? Well you see they don’t think we are Obi Wan Kenobi…

[apple4ever]

Standups are the worst part of Agile. I never understand why anybody likes them. As you said, they torpedo productivity. I went from a company with standups to no standups, and oh my it was glorious. I could actually get things done! Then two years later, they started adding them. They were so worthless. They added nothing to ICs and as a manager they added nothing to me either. I left shortly after, partly because of that.