So you're 'agile', huh? I do not think it means what you think it means

Sounds like..

Attending a Tai Chi class for a few weeks before slowly realising the entire class is just being taught the moves for some of the less impossibly athletic slow-mo scenes from the Matrix movies (or seems like it).

Something's off with this article ... I can't quite...

Michael Cote will be speaking at our Continuous Lifecycle London 2018 event. Full details, including early bird tickets, right here.

... and there it is. Perhaps you could post a link to the author's GitHub repository so we can verify his credentials to lecture about coding? Or how about an overview of the last development project he personally managed to successful completion (preferably in an environment with compliance/regulatory/safety aspects)?

I must re-emphasise the personally managed bit because we're all familiar with George Bernard Shaw's insightful dictum ("Those who can - do. Those who cannot - consult") and I wouldn't want to write someone off as a PowerPoint jockey unfairly.

'When does your user ever see your code?'

Speaks for it self, and it's saying "i'm bollocks".

Call my me a cynic, but anybody who is experienced enough to understand their users, will know they will simple ask "is that Chinese?"..

This shite is clearly aimed at PFY's who are desperate for a mentor and guidance on how to gain experience and progress their skillset.

One size does not fit all and it is not all about code.

I'm sure most organisations would love to have the sorts of systems that can tolerate an agile approach.

But they don't.

Also, agile is incredibly difficult to implement with an IT organisation that's majority outsourced. Even if you can do agile, your suppliers probably can't. And besides, they need a PO before getting going, which means detailed analysis of requirements

A supplier who knows their onions won't sign up to something (especially with a new customer) unless it's carefully detailed (otherwise you get sued when the business isn't happy with the results) and procurement don't sign up to just handing out money to a new supplier without a detailed view of what they're getting in return.

So agile is good at developing code, but that's only one part of how IT works in organisations.

Developmestruction

The waterfall devcycle is largely a straw man argument recycled over and over again to push more expensive talks and consultancy hours of how to avoid doing the strawman dev cycle.

The important thing is to generate something end users like and use. What dev cycle you use to attain this entirely, and wholly irrelevant.

Someonr is getting to the reality

And indeed the "wall" from operational teams is also more complex in some instances.

Software put live is often under some sort of "warranty" which expires regardless of the next sprint or sprints regardless of issues arising. Financial frameworks damage this relationship regardless.

Worries about, can I back out or fix issues arising quickly turn into issues of, I cant fix it till next week as the developers are working on the next sprint (or will escalate into arguments about what to drop from sprint) - also take a worrying turn for the brave ops manager.

Delivering half baked sprints into customer facing systems where failure or poor user experience puts your brand on the line, while the project is trying to churn out tiny parts of large complex changes with lots of clever concurrent development.... For Agile to truly work you need to TRUST your developers to do the right thing - this is often not easy, and operational people are not always considered as a key stakeholder, particularly as their needs are often boring and not based on shiny new stuff for developers or marketing to show off with.

Trust is a key issue, and with the usual case of transient outsourced code shops, entirely disconnected from your business, with endless cycles of change it is no wonder that larger organisations struggle, possibly justifiably, with being fully agile.

I would have thought that the 'Agile' bit should be about how fast the developers fix the bugs and cockups in their code so it can go into production as bug free as possible as well as fulfilling the specifications.

I cannot believe I'm going to defend...

...some of the stuff I saw when I was is Gov't service but here goes:

For agile to work, one needs and intelligent and engaged customer. A hint of this is found in the question, 'has your customer seen source code?' In a govt to govt context if you show source code, your PM will s#can you immediately. Why? The customer would have absolutely no clue what to do with it. I've seen projects (looking at you DHS) where turnover at the mid-level management to decision maker level was so high that teams could not get on the calendar to brief the wunderkind of the moment before he shoved off for greener pa$ture$. For years straight.

So what do you do when your customer cannot find their own ass with both hands, a flashlight, and a radar set? Make your own best estimate of what they need... somehow get the yes-men, sycophants, and sociopaths above you to agree to a course of action.... maintain laser-like focus on those requirements so you dont piss away resources chasing buzzwords or shiny... and execute. Sounds a lot like the much-maligned waterfall, no?

If you try to go agile you are brought into constant contact with the same yes-men, sycophants, and sociopaths. They've got no insight into whats needed - no technical ability - and are only going to demand more buzzwords and shiby.

The actual users? Nowhere at the table in the bureaucracy. In the "as built" govt waterfall-ish process they get at least some representation because the developers usually hire some to serve as requirements leads early on.

I'm not claiming the as-built process builds products that are optimal, cheap, or necessarily effective. What I'm saying is that its the best you can do in a Byzantine bureaucracy populated by sinecures. Going agile without having a decent customer seems like cruel and unusual punishment, and thats unconstitutional.

That's reality. And that's why I drink and my liver shall be buried with full honors.

Ahh, (fr)Agile

AKA a bunch of people who don't understand process running around in circles until something looks vaguely right? There's a GCSE in the subject - students get unlimited retakes.