I learned one of the Agile methods before the term Agile was even invented. Adopting it made a giant difference in the quality and sanity of my work.
But so many people today have have pseudo-Agile methods inflicted on them in large corporate contexts. There, the point isn't to make things saner and more effective. It's to please some executive who has a bee in their bonnet. And often, they only adopt some labels and some rituals. It's all pain, no gain.
But it's at the point where I avoid using the term "Agile". Or any other buzzword. I look at the circumstances, and say, "Hey, you guys feel pain X. Can we try change Y and see if that helps?" Often, the tool is one from the Agile or Lean toolbox. But I won't talk about the particular process I'm borrowing from because a) most people don't care, and b) a lot of people have been burned with faux-Agile adoptions.
I believe the bulk of what people call "Agile" these days is terrible. You could say that most of that isn't the true Agile. But at some point I think that isn't a battle worth fighting. Personally, I just say that Agile started out as X and has become Y.
I would rather they didn't throw the baby out with their bathwater, but in the stories I have heard, the vitriol is entirely valid. I don't think it should be all directed at "Agile", in that managers deserve a lot, as do the hierarchical power structures in which the managers work. But the Agile people also made choices that led to this outcome, so I think it's fair that there's some spleen-venting directly at the Agile movement.
I learned one of the Agile methods before the term Agile was even invented. Adopting it made a giant difference in the quality and sanity of my work.
But so many people today have have pseudo-Agile methods inflicted on them in large corporate contexts. There, the point isn't to make things saner and more effective. It's to please some executive who has a bee in their bonnet. And often, they only adopt some labels and some rituals. It's all pain, no gain.
I wrote about how this happened here: http://agilefocus.com/2011/02/21/agiles-second-chasm-and-how...
But it's at the point where I avoid using the term "Agile". Or any other buzzword. I look at the circumstances, and say, "Hey, you guys feel pain X. Can we try change Y and see if that helps?" Often, the tool is one from the Agile or Lean toolbox. But I won't talk about the particular process I'm borrowing from because a) most people don't care, and b) a lot of people have been burned with faux-Agile adoptions.