You’ll never do Agile right, because there’s no way to prove that you’re doing it right.
I strongly disagree with this. There is a clear point to the manifesto: it’s a bunch of consultants who used exciting-sounding words to tell their clients “the software is behind schedule and over budget because you keep making changes to what you want”.
Which leads to a clear definition of “doing Agile”/“doing it right”: you are “doing Agile” if and only if the people who have the power to request changes to software also accept (and understand) responsibility for doing so. If you have that, you do not need a manifesto or any of the baggage of Agile-as-promoted-and-practiced. If you do not have that, no amount of practices or processes will help.
One day a stranger came to Rav Hillel and made a request: “Teach me the Torah as I stand on one foot.” So Hillel taught him: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah, all the rest is commentary.
And then the stranger said: “but a full collection of the Gemara is nine feet long and weighs 200 pounds. Why do we need 72 volumes of commentary on a single sentence?
And Hillel said “look, when you get into specifics everything gets real complicated real fast. Try following the golden rule for a year and you’ll find that 72 volumes of commentary isn’t enough.
I think something that agile doesn’t address/tackles is culture change. The baseline of agile is that you already understand/know from experience the pain and lack of efficiency of rigid proceesses. Agile assumes that everyone is on board, but it’s far from being the general case. In my mind, agile succeded at making the “embrace change” motto something that people can get behind, but I think we need other tools to support a change in individuals, particularly in corporate/institutional.
I strongly disagree with this. There is a clear point to the manifesto: it’s a bunch of consultants who used exciting-sounding words to tell their clients “the software is behind schedule and over budget because you keep making changes to what you want”.
Which leads to a clear definition of “doing Agile”/“doing it right”: you are “doing Agile” if and only if the people who have the power to request changes to software also accept (and understand) responsibility for doing so. If you have that, you do not need a manifesto or any of the baggage of Agile-as-promoted-and-practiced. If you do not have that, no amount of practices or processes will help.
Agile is the same way.
I think something that agile doesn’t address/tackles is culture change. The baseline of agile is that you already understand/know from experience the pain and lack of efficiency of rigid proceesses. Agile assumes that everyone is on board, but it’s far from being the general case. In my mind, agile succeded at making the “embrace change” motto something that people can get behind, but I think we need other tools to support a change in individuals, particularly in corporate/institutional.
I will rather work on waterfall or classic RUP/OpenUP projects with smart people rather than agile project with assholes.