6 Things Developers Hate about Agile
Either you love or hate agile development, it’s sure to live on. Though agile comes with many benefits – including increased stakeholder engagement, transparency, early delivery, improved quality, focus on users and business value – but there are still things developers hate about it.
#1. Thinking Agile is a silver bullet that will solve all your problems
When agile became a buzz word, lots of companies decided to adopt it and its every ever-existed framework. But as a result, many of them forgot the real meaning of agile.
The truth is that popular agile “brands” – Scrum, Kanban, Extreme programming, Pair programming and many others – may help you create better products. Or they may not. That’s why, instead of mindlessly following another “agile brand”, experiment, try new things, review and make changes that will let you deliver better products.
#2. Saying you’re “agile” just because you’re doing daily standups
Though the practice of daily standups definitely has some value, agile is much more than this. But just because you arrange a 15-minute meeting on a daily basis, it doesn’t mean you’re agile.
#3. Saying you’re agile when you’re definitely not
You might be doing the major agile methodology practices, but if you don’t understand the key agile practices and your team lacks flexibility, openness, collaboration, team spirit and doesn’t focus on quality and customer needs, then you’re not agile.
#4. Arguing about the difference between Agile and agile
It gets on many developers’ nerves when the so-called “agilists” have smart-aleck talks about the difference between the big A (Agile) and small a (agile). In fact, the only difference you should worry about is the difference between being agile and doing agile.
It’s not enough just to ‘do agile’ (aka follow agile practices – iterations, stand-ups, user stories, etc). ‘Being agile’ goes far deeper than that – it’s about our mindset and organisational culture; it’s about what we value and how we behave.
#5. Blaming agile if you tried it once and failed
Any project may succeed or fail, even if you’re using agile methods. You need to understand that agile is not a silver bullet, so if something went wrong, don’t blame the process – how effectively it’s used depends on decision-makers, not on the approach itself. After all, agile is just another tool, and if it doesn’t work for you, pick another.
6. Using agile as an excuse for having no documentation
This is a popular misconception of agile practitioners that the project can be delivered more quickly and easily by avoiding documentation. But agile is not an excuse for skipping documentation!
Documentation is important in agile projects, though it is often more focused and condensed. The level of documentation needs to be appropriate to the particular project you are working on and the level of maturity of the team.
Is there anything to add? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
5 Comments
Amy Swinhoe
about 6 years ago7. Using agile as an excuse for having no clue how to maintain delivered product No documentation, SCRUM teams developing in a vacuum and then moving on to the next task - when the customer comes back with a query ("I did this, the software did that, surely it should do the other") the software company look like a pile of idiots because they do not know the answer.
ReplyMarc
about 5 years ago#8. Blaming your programmers if your agile project failed. Because well it cannot be agile, and it cannot be the management, so if you are doing agile and your project failed, it is because your programmers aren't good enough for agile. Just like if your ideal socialist society does not work, it is because those annoying people of the working class are not enlightened enough. Agile does not work, and were it does work, it would have worked without calling it agile. And 'Waterfall' never existed!! Not in the way agilers describe it. Agile is just baloney.
ReplyAlan Larimer
about 4 years agoThere is no "agile methodology" (thus why the capital A discussion exists and remains important); there is only the agile philosophy (consisting of 4 values and 12 principles) which was documented by 17 leaders experimenting in more efficient and effective product development with various frameworks and methodologies. http://agilemanifesto.org/
Replytom rose
about 4 years agoAgile gets a lot of flak because Scrum is presented as an "Agile Methodology". That is a lie. Scrum is NOT agile. IT is anti-agile. It imposes process over and above "individuals and interactions", thereby going directly against the Agile manifesto.
Replydieman
about 4 years agoI don’t hate Agile. It has many good things to it that help developing quality software: proximity of the client, continuous integration, refactoring. But I do hate social aspects of it, especially the so-called SCRUM process. Okay, I understand: folks with degrees in music and theology also need good jobs in software companies. Again, too few generations back our ancestors preferred to hang out in groups lead by religious leaders. Our managers today want to be seen as fashionable and innovative among there fashion-driven fellow-managers. Because of all this we have to hire these scrum master guys who will stand there in front of me every morning with a clock in their hands, tell me when to speak and when to shut up, adding no value whatsoever. I think SCRUM was invented around 2000 when during the dotcom boom software development ceased to be a job for people with a proper university degree and when herds of guys from the meat-packing factory joined in after a 3-month programming course - that's when the institute of "SCRUM-master" was born. I am a self-driven motivated professional, and the SCRUM process turned my job, which used to be a good job, into a sh*t job. And there is no escape from this - almost anywhere you go you will see more or less the same setup. It's really sad. Some people like it of course, but it's not a nice job anymore.
Reply