Rob Smyth

Wednesday 9 July 2008

How To Fail With Agile

This URL to "How To Fail With Agile" came to me from a post to the Melbourne XP Enthusiasts group. I feel the pain of recognition :-).

I'll ignore the blurring of the difference between agile and XP implied in the article.

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sqe/bettersoftware0708/
<http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sqe/bettersoftware0708/>

2 comments:

Greg said...

That's a crazy site Rob; I've never seen a mag shown like that before.

I regards to the article i don't think they put enough effort in to explaining how to deal with the issues people have with agile.

They generally mention how people often expect agile results even though they fail to either buy in to the agile methods or learn about the agile concepts before implementing them.

From my point of view i think people beat the agile drum when it is obvious some people have there back up about aspects of it. They continue to beat the drum without stepping back and explaining why they want to do something a certain way.

For example the agile concept "Working software over comprehensive documentation". People always seem to say "Agile says no documenting!". I see (or read) very few Agile leaders (expect Cockburn) stepping back and saying, "there is value in documentation" and naming some situations where you need/want doco.

Then coming back and saying "but don't think that good doco means you product development is on schedule".

Do acknowledge it as very useful when recording direction and as a deliverable to new developers (unless every developer has to come see the product lead for any questions product direction or intent)

I like Ron Jeffries article http://xprogramming.com/xpmag/jatAgileIsIsNotMayBe.htm

I think he suggests that there are too many people just using the Agile concept as a selling point

good post though.

Rob Smyth said...

Hi James,

I do appreciate Cockburn's perspective. He does seem to see the fundamentals years before others. But he does not a popular formula.

I've not been a great Jeffries fan but you may be bring me around with the link you gave. Insightful although I'm sensitive about the mixing of attidutes (ailge) and processes (ala XP). I may be being a bit over sensitive as I'm often working with people who use XP as a byword for agile :-).

Love the quote:

"Agile Software Development requires software development."

I do agree with you on "too many people just using the Agile concept as a selling point".