I personally think Agile is mostly a scam built around some very small nuggets of common sense wisdom, which has then been propagandized by legions of clueless methodology consultants to mediocre teams and management, and spun into mediocre books and conferenceware. Just my personal opinion, ymmv etc.
That said, this is a badly written article which doesn't convey much useful information or convincing argument. I am surprised it is on the HN front page,leave alone being the top ranked article (at the time of writing this comment).
Agile and TDD have been exhaustively discussed before on HN and an HNSearch will bring up much better arguments, both pro and con, from people who can clearly explain their viewpoints.
True, the article is basically a rant, but I tend to agree. I've felt like the agile train left my station long ago and it wasn't for trying. After being invited to attend a free 'workshop' from one of the holiest purveyors of agile out there, I left with the feeling that it definitely was all for those who did not know how to actually 'do the work'.
The trends I've been seeing and trying to do are as follows:
* full stack responsibility. You own the task front (js/html) to back (db), including testing.
* no f-ing standups. Communicate normally with your colleagues, no prescribed check in with them.
* no iterations. Release whenever; it may sound crazy but kanban style release whenever you're ready to push features out, in my mind, is the way to go.
* engineers, again, run the company. This in my mind is the biggest thing - having those 'with power' also be engineers and the product being the most important product.
All the above are the opposite of what I've seen with the agile movement. Keep teams small, keep them close and your product will reflect that.
Another huge, HUGE thing is to get the fucking mba management types out of the office. Can't stress this enough: if you can't code, you don't belong. You're making a tech company but you don't understand the basics of how the product is made.. So, you own a furniture making company and you don't understand what glue, oak, and lathes are..? Fail.
That's my real life experience and opinions regarding agile. I've tossed away all the agile stuff for a new project I'm doing and like the poster says, it's all based on common sense. You can run your company or project any way you want. I have friends that have millions in revenue every year with their small shops and they don't do any agile stuff. Yet they're one of the leaders in their space and when my friend, the engineer ceo, told me "we have no iterations or deadlines except when it has to be done by", that was a big wakeup. I was thinking "THAT'S how I want to do things".
> full stack responsibility. You own the task front (js/html) to back (db), including testing.
Unless you are 1337 with all of those you end up with silos instead of properly defined layers and reusable code.
> Another huge, HUGE thing is to get the fucking mba management types out of the office. Can't stress this enough: if you can't code, you don't belong.
Awesome, I'll get around to telling my boss that, the very same one that hired me.
"* no iterations. Release whenever; it may sound crazy but kanban style release whenever you're ready to push features out, in my mind, is the way to go."
I am not a programmer. I have been involved in user training and in documentation for end users. How does your project handle the situation where there is a non-trivial change in the user interface?
That's it, the marketing people take a very simple concept, put a lot of marketing bullshit around it, make it seem A LOT MORE difficult than it needs to be and you then have to take a million courses to understand what the hell is going on. The best "agile" managers I have worked with "just got it", just like the best developers. There is none of this spoon feeding a baby crap.
True, agile is a collection of "very small nuggets of common sense wisdom". But one thing that often gets missed is that common sense is often very hard to implement properly; this is where a good agile trainer will help.
I can think of dozens of changes I should make to my every day life based on common sense (don't get stressed, spend more time with firends and familly, save for the future etc). Why don't I do them? Because it's difficult to align these "simlple" truths with the overall complexity of my environment and competing pressures. There's always complexity in the system, agile just simplifies one part and moves complexity into other areas e.g. having a highly trained and skilled team.
Don't confuse "what you should do", with "how you should do it".
For example the what is "do not get stressed", the how might be to plan your day better, keep your life simple, etc.
These small nuggets usually talk bout the how, but a lot of people either think they know better, or have resigned themselves to the fact that it really is that hard.
That said, this is a badly written article which doesn't convey much useful information or convincing argument. I am surprised it is on the HN front page,leave alone being the top ranked article (at the time of writing this comment).
Agile and TDD have been exhaustively discussed before on HN and an HNSearch will bring up much better arguments, both pro and con, from people who can clearly explain their viewpoints.