The point that text is superior to speech for many kinds of technical communication is widely underappreciated, in my opinion. It’s much easier to get away with hand-waving in a verbal discussion (of course, there are unfortunately people who prefer it for that reason). When something is written down, it’s easier to see when it’s too vague or skips necessary steps.
Distributed-or-not is certainly not a settled matter. Open source projects are distributed out of necessity; on the (rare) occasions where an open-source project’s developers are able to all gather in a single room, they often achieve (IME) a lot more in a short space of time than when working distributedly.
Agile culture often seems like nothing more than a marketplace for processes – including Scrum
Sure. But that’s explicitly contra to the manifesto. The manifesto is still right.
Even companies that claim not to do remote work, or asynchronous communication, will still expect their employees to answer work emails on their phones from almost anywhere.
Not any of the one’s I’ve worked for.
There’s a weird and condescending implication that developers are not in business, which they typically are, in Scrum environments.
This is nitpicking. Saying every developer is a business person is like saying all program logic is business logic. Of course it contributes to the business; nevertheless, in almost all companies almost all employees cluster into one of two groups. The labels are informative enough, though if you insist on using different ones that’s fine. But getting members of the two clusters to talk to each other is still vital.
I’ve never heard of anyone doing Scrum for fun in their free time.
I know at least three people who use agile processes (admittedly usually Kanban rather than Scrum per se) to organize personal non-business projects.
Scrum takes this “daily” thing much too literally, making a daily meeting between developers and “business people” mandatory, whether there’s any need for it or not. If you’re required to say “that thing I said would take a couple days is taking a couple days,” it’s hard to do so without sounding apologetic, defiant, or mindless. It’s just a silly thing to require a professional to say to other professionals on a daily basis.
Silly or not, it’s very valuable. Having a routine ensures that these things actually happen, juts as “I’ll exercise whenever I have time” is theoretically more optimal but loses out in practice to “I’ll exercise for 1 hour every Monday and Thursday”. Daily is a reasonably appropriate frequency (I prefer twice a day, but whatever works for you).
Many things are wrong with Scrum, and with a large number of people who call themselves “Agile”. But no term is incorruptible. The Agile Manifesto is still gold, and we need words to talk about our processes. I certainly have more confidence in a place that claims to be “Agile” than one that claims to practice “Extreme Programming”.
Even companies that claim not to do remote work, or asynchronous communication, will still expect their employees to answer work emails on their phones from almost anywhere.
Not any of the one’s I’ve worked for.
There are definitely a lot of companies that have this expectation. You are actually fairly lucky, based on my own experience.
If you’re required to say “that thing I said would take a couple days is taking a couple days,” it’s hard to do so without sounding apologetic, defiant, or mindless. It’s just a silly thing to require a professional to say to other professionals on a daily basis.
Silly or not, it’s very valuable.
It might be valuable, but there is a difference in just repeating yourself in a standup with information from elsewhere and making a useful statement. (Much like there are ways to look busy exercising but have no benefit.) Both companies that mandate a daily standup and everyone individually can work on improving the signal/noise ratio in the standup itself.
But I’d generally agree with you, that the Agile Manifesto is pretty good. The surrounding culture isn’t as high quality.
The point that text is superior to speech for many kinds of technical communication is widely underappreciated, in my opinion. It’s much easier to get away with hand-waving in a verbal discussion (of course, there are unfortunately people who prefer it for that reason). When something is written down, it’s easier to see when it’s too vague or skips necessary steps.
Distributed-or-not is certainly not a settled matter. Open source projects are distributed out of necessity; on the (rare) occasions where an open-source project’s developers are able to all gather in a single room, they often achieve (IME) a lot more in a short space of time than when working distributedly.
Sure. But that’s explicitly contra to the manifesto. The manifesto is still right.
Not any of the one’s I’ve worked for.
This is nitpicking. Saying every developer is a business person is like saying all program logic is business logic. Of course it contributes to the business; nevertheless, in almost all companies almost all employees cluster into one of two groups. The labels are informative enough, though if you insist on using different ones that’s fine. But getting members of the two clusters to talk to each other is still vital.
I know at least three people who use agile processes (admittedly usually Kanban rather than Scrum per se) to organize personal non-business projects.
Silly or not, it’s very valuable. Having a routine ensures that these things actually happen, juts as “I’ll exercise whenever I have time” is theoretically more optimal but loses out in practice to “I’ll exercise for 1 hour every Monday and Thursday”. Daily is a reasonably appropriate frequency (I prefer twice a day, but whatever works for you).
Many things are wrong with Scrum, and with a large number of people who call themselves “Agile”. But no term is incorruptible. The Agile Manifesto is still gold, and we need words to talk about our processes. I certainly have more confidence in a place that claims to be “Agile” than one that claims to practice “Extreme Programming”.
There are definitely a lot of companies that have this expectation. You are actually fairly lucky, based on my own experience.
It might be valuable, but there is a difference in just repeating yourself in a standup with information from elsewhere and making a useful statement. (Much like there are ways to look busy exercising but have no benefit.) Both companies that mandate a daily standup and everyone individually can work on improving the signal/noise ratio in the standup itself.
But I’d generally agree with you, that the Agile Manifesto is pretty good. The surrounding culture isn’t as high quality.
I’ve heard this described as “the difference between ‘agile’ the verb and ‘agile’ the noun.”
a) it’s not a verb b) which way around is that?