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by carsongross
4481 days ago
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To the extent that I've seen development methodologies work, they appear to mostly fix organizational barriers that get in the way of The One Thing That Actually Works[1]: hire a small group of extremely talented developers and product designers and then let them work. [1] Assuming your codebase isn't already a monstrosity. If it is... well, then nothing works. |
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Spot on. Whenever I go into one of my own anti-"Agile" rants, among my main points is that formal organizational process is simply unnecessary with talented, motivated development teams. In my long experience across many start-ups (which tend to get the aforementioned sorts of teams), if you just put a bunch of really smart people (devs) in a room with a project to do, Good Things happen. They know what needs to be done. They know how to do it. Any kind of formal development methodology just gets in the way. Management in those environments (and I've done that) is about care and feeding and listening and gaining consensus. It's not about religion or process. When I first read the Manifesto, not long after it came out, my reaction was YES! But in no time the Formal Methodologists came out of the woodwork and hijacked the whole thing, turning an attractive philosophy into just another management fad, one with nearly as much religious orthodoxy as what it replaced. Agile, with a capital "A", can't die quickly enough.