I dislike Agile because apparently the only thing is "waterfall" or "Agile". Many seem to think that before "Agile" or at least "Extreme Programming" there was nothing but the waterfall boogie-man.
It's as if they had never read books like "Rapid Development" which describes over a dozen different design approaches, with pros and cons.
I dislike Agile because apparently the only important thing is the Toyota Way. They never mention alternatives like the Volvo's Uddevalla plant and humanistic manufacturing.
Eg, quoting from http://gerpisa.org/ancien-gerpisa/actes/9/9-5.pdf "After a slow start Uddevalla took off and in 1991 reached the level of the Gothenburg mass production plant. From the last quarter of 1990 to the last quarter of 1992 Uddevalla cut the assembly time at an average rate of one hour a month. This rapid learning curve surpassed developments at the Gothenburg plant, where lean production techniques were introduced to boost performance."
Yes, such conclusions are contested, but it's still a concrete alternative that's almost ignored by those repeating the chant "Toyota ... Toyota ... Toyota."
I dislike Agile because it's a collection of ill-defined mush. If a group adapts or changes in any way during a project, and the project is successful, then it's counted as an Agile success story, while if it project fails despite flexibility then it must not have been True Agile, or at least Enough Agile.
"Rapid Development" was/is one of my all time favorite "project management" type books. Waterfall is a baseline. Even in what people would consider waterfall, there were "buffer" items incase we needed to change everything. The scrum disciples are being disingenuous when they compare everything to waterfall. It's like comparing the newest language to programming the Altair.
IMHO purpose of agile was to reduce the work in progress at Toyota. This can improve efficiency of existing assembly line. It was never supposed to build the new and improved assembly lines in short sprints. But that's what it is being shoe horned into and have become an excuse for not spending time doing the requirement gathering and deep design thinking.
I strongly feel Agile is a nice fit only when base work is done properly in terms of getting the software architecture and contracts correctly defined.
Comments
I dislike Agile because apparently the only thing is "waterfall" or "Agile". Many seem to think that before "Agile" or at least "Extreme Programming" there was nothing but the waterfall boogie-man.
It's as if they had never read books like "Rapid Development" which describes over a dozen different design approaches, with pros and cons.
I dislike Agile because apparently the only important thing is the Toyota Way. They never mention alternatives like the Volvo's Uddevalla plant and humanistic manufacturing.
Eg, quoting from http://gerpisa.org/ancien-gerpisa/actes/9/9-5.pdf "After a slow start Uddevalla took off and in 1991 reached the level of the Gothenburg mass production plant. From the last quarter of 1990 to the last quarter of 1992 Uddevalla cut the assembly time at an average rate of one hour a month. This rapid learning curve surpassed developments at the Gothenburg plant, where lean production techniques were introduced to boost performance."
Yes, such conclusions are contested, but it's still a concrete alternative that's almost ignored by those repeating the chant "Toyota ... Toyota ... Toyota."
I dislike Agile because it's a collection of ill-defined mush. If a group adapts or changes in any way during a project, and the project is successful, then it's counted as an Agile success story, while if it project fails despite flexibility then it must not have been True Agile, or at least Enough Agile.
"Rapid Development" was/is one of my all time favorite "project management" type books. Waterfall is a baseline. Even in what people would consider waterfall, there were "buffer" items incase we needed to change everything. The scrum disciples are being disingenuous when they compare everything to waterfall. It's like comparing the newest language to programming the Altair.
IMHO purpose of agile was to reduce the work in progress at Toyota. This can improve efficiency of existing assembly line. It was never supposed to build the new and improved assembly lines in short sprints. But that's what it is being shoe horned into and have become an excuse for not spending time doing the requirement gathering and deep design thinking.
I strongly feel Agile is a nice fit only when base work is done properly in terms of getting the software architecture and contracts correctly defined.