Posted on 04/18/2017 5:19:37 AM PDT by Mechanicos
Exactly. It just kills me how people/clients took the agile approach to dev and made it into “agile management” or som eother jack@$$ed approach. Mind you most of my clients are gov.
5. The devil is always in the details. Ignore the details at your own peril.
I think that is the most critical one.
When management doesn't want to talk about details (the famous “big picture guys”) then it's easy for any project, software or not, to get derailed.
“The entire release cycle has to be Agile for it to properly work. I’m not sure it can EVER work in an Enterprise environment, however. It always turns waterfall-ish in the end.”
Exactly, that’s the reality of agile as opposed to the theoretical sales pitch that consultants push in your face.
I think this sort of stuff happens in most companies. Most executives search for an easy answer to their problems, instead of looking in the mirror to find the real source of their problems. Truly gifted executives with a combination of brains, skill and modesty are pretty rare.
Correct. Technically when requirements change, all work should be reset and put in the next iteration for agile to work. But many people do not do that and just end up violating age old project management rules.
But when I was in it, the best projects were always led (and in many cases, almost solely completed) by one of those 7+ developers the author refers to. I never saw a team of 3's produce anything of lasting value - using Agile or any other methodology.
Companies who are smart enough to hire and retain the big brains will have the most IT success. But since most firms still see IT as an overpriced and ancillary function - ripe for outsourcing - there aren't many places left those big brains will deem to be worth working for.
I have found that we spent more time doing the PROCESS of agile than the software we were trying to make
In the end I often just gave up and wrote the stupid thing
Yep. Top athletes drill the basic fundamentals over and over again. Too many companies are so engrossed in big data that they fail to realize that big data is meaningless unless you are paying attention to the fundamental small data - the quality of the individual records and transactions and processes.
At that point, its been rendered useless.
Our department had a meeting about how we were going to improve our internal processes. I chimed in and said, that's all fine and dandy, but will those process improvements extend outside our department? If the Business Analyst sends over crap requirements, all our process improvements are for naught. All departments in the chain have to be part of the process improvements for such to work.
They had no answer for that. I guess that is one reason why I don't get promoted, I have the annoying trait of popping bubbles.
Quality has to have top-down urgency. But too many mid and top tier executives fail to understand that need, let alone their role in driving such forward.
Management: CHEAP-FAST-GOOD. You can only pick two.
Bill
of
goods
Ur funnie!
Actually, I sold my company in 1994, so all of this took place before the Agile process had gained any traction. The process “just happened” over time while my company was in business. I’m not sure how “adaptable” my experience is to larger companies as there seems to be a critical mass where the company starts needing middle management. I think the esprit d’corps thing gets harder and harder to keep as the number of employees expands.
^THIS!
Agile is fantastic, but there’s one major proviso for it: it only works if you team rocks. It is hands down the best method for getting out of your team’s way and letting them do what you hired them to. But if they aren’t up to the task of self management, they’ll die in agile. And your managers need to be smart enough to understand what’s really going on in agile. If they try to be super hands on, and they treat those sprints as deadlines they’ll kill it.
Yes, I know. No one does that; which makes the whole thing useless, thus violating basic project management rules.
Ping for later reading
Agile is suited only for software and then it’s weak.
It’s absolutely useless for IT infrastructure. Worse than useless, it’s detrimental.
IT project management by hippie.
I know. I have both PMP and Agile certs.
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