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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday January 04 2018, @02:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-if-you-can't-program-your-way-out-of-a-paper-bag? dept.

Agile Development is hip. It's hot. All the cool kids are doing it.

But it doesn't work.

Before I get into why this "Agile" stuff is horrible, let's describe where Agile/Scrum can work. It can work for a time-sensitive and critical project of short duration (6 weeks max) that cross-cuts the business and has no clear manager, because it involves people from multiple departments. You can call it a "Code Red" or call it a Scrum or a "War Room" if you have a physical room for it.

Note that "Agile" comes from the consulting world. It suits well the needs of a small consulting firm, not yet very well-established, that lands one big-ticket project and needs to deliver it quickly, despite changing requirements and other potential bad behavior from the client. It works well when you have a relatively homogeneous talent level and a staff of generalists, which might also be true for an emerging web consultancy.

As a short-term methodology when a firm faces an existential risk or a game-changing opportunity, I'm not opposed to the "Code Red"/"crunch time"/Scrum practice of ignoring peoples' career goals and their individual talents. I have in mind that this "Code Red" state should exist for no more than 6 weeks per year in a well-run business. Even that's less than ideal: the ideal is zero. Frequent crises reflect poorly on management.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 04 2018, @07:07PM (1 child)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday January 04 2018, @07:07PM (#617881) Journal

    It's called the Hawthorne Effect [wikipedia.org] and it isn't specific to IT.

    Pretty much any procedure change will result in a short-term improvement, regardless of whether the change itself is any good.

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  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday January 05 2018, @11:15AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Friday January 05 2018, @11:15AM (#618288) Journal
    Thanks. I hadn't had time to go and dig out my copy of Peopleware to find the original citation.
    --
    sudo mod me up