this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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Being Agile (lemmy.ml)
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Scrum is not the be-all end-all, but in organizations that cannot implement scrum effectively, no system could hope to achieve anything meaningful either.

Scrum aims at empowering workers to remove power from clueless MBAs and meritless CEOs, if they don't want to play ball then the idiocracy will win every time regardless.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No, it just means that this is not the right tool for that company. But it is forced upon the employees.

That's naive ( or bad faith) to think that it gives power to the workers. It's just used against them.

I get the spirit of the method, but it is not the only available tool and the right tool for every project and company and should be treated as such.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Good software does not come out of companies without a bottom-up approach to software development. Top-down approaches are either terrible or extremely expensive.

Agile development is something that at my company we fought for, not against. It's literally impossible to fight against actual agile development since it has to come from the workers. Agile is not scrum, and neither are a collection of ceremonies. It's just a framework to give agency to developers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Do you think that traditional project management is from the top down? Or were you exposed to bad traditional project management? Because that's the same argument that you are making for Agile.

Let's make things clear - the Agile methodology is a great tool. But like any other tool, it is not a one size fits all. But what is happening right now is that it's pushed by upper management because that's the cool tool.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

What kind of non-agile bottom-up software projects have you experienced? Bottom-up waterfall? I guess it's possible in theory but that would be a sight to behold.

My only point is that in most situations, upper management are fools that should be left to their devices and should never get a say in development methodologies. By definition if upper management imposes Scrum, it's a self-defeating prophecy.

Waterfall Agile Scrum
Top-down Can be great (esp. with rigid requirements like fintech, for safety-critical systems, or integration with traditional engineering processes with rigid schedules and feature sets) but will probably be more expensive Bad managers trying to make-up for their own lack of foresight Can't exist (but some companies pretend very hard)
Bottom-up Probably can't exist (but I haven't seen anyone try) Yes Yes

Your average tech company should be somewhere in the bottom-right, but bad managers are trying to pull the needle upwards to justify their existence or make up for their incompetence. But they still call that "Agile" (which can be true by some definitions of the word) or "Scrum" (which that isn't, by definition).