| >Everyone seems to agree that we're doing Agile wrong The fact that we've all heard this line (yet never heard a solution) should make it pretty clear that it's more of a management religion than an engineering practice. "You're doing it wrong" is the perfect built-in, pre-packaged defense to the Agile system that agile managers/consultants/etc can rattle off with zero effort and an air of superiority. Had a bad experience? Well, you were doing it wrong. It's not an issue with the system. I recently worked at a place that was the text book example of agile/scrum development methodologies -- Which I don't mean figuratively, I mean in the literal sense, their big claim to fame was that they were the subject of a case study on the success of Agile methodologies. So, having worked in a place that was studied for "getting it right," it's extremely annoying to see all critiques of agile had waved away under the flag of "you did it wrong" Just about every complaint in the article existed at this place as well. For me, at the tip top of the list was meetings. Planning would take hours. Sometimes it would be split up over two days. That is two days out of the 10 you have available for development eaten up by talking about what you're going to develop. Then there's a meeting to show what we did in those 10 days. Then another meeting to talk about what we think we did in those 10 days and how it could be better (which was of course done through stupid time wasting games ("I wish I could have ___" "I was happy when ___", "I should start doing ___")) Then layer on top of all that a whole hierarchy of people whose whole job description is to be "agile" -- which not a single developer was able to explain to me the meaning since the day I started. I'm ranting too much, but the whole agile thing just gets under my skin. It's such a massive waste of time. Leaving that company was a happy happy day. I now work at a place where 'planning' takes 15 minutes in front of a white board. Engineering discussions take as long as they need with the relevant parties whenever needed. Other than that, you're left alone to fucking do your job. |
Back when I was a wee lad, with nary a keyboard callus upon my digits, I learned about a little thing called Murphy's Law. In brief, it says that if anything can be done incorrectly, someone will eventually do it that way. It was a warning to those designing things, to make doing the wrong thing impossible, or at least much more difficult to do accidentally.
As a result, among those taught about Murphy's Law, "doing it wrong" was a design flaw. If, for instance, you could destroy radio reception in a handheld device by holding it in a particular way--a way that did not cause pain or discomfort in an ordinary human hand--it was the fault of the device manufacturer, not the user.
If you can do Agile "wrong", then it is a problem with Agile.
As for myself, I just think to myself that someone, somewhere, has weaponized an idiot, and has launched it against me. It is equal parts Inspector Clouseau, Mister Gumby, Ali G, Drunken Master, and a particularly evil djinn. He will do exactly what you ask, in the most malicious manner possible. He will follow a process with absolute rigor, and produce the worst possible outcome.
I firmly believe that such people actually exist--individuals so brutally incompetent that they are indistinguishable from malicious trolls. So you might as well plan around a person intentionally trying to break your design while still maintaining the plausible deniability of not breaking any of your rules.
Agile cannot hold up under the assault of a weaponized idiot. There are simply too many possible attack vectors.