Why Engineers Despise Agile

March 26, 2016

TL;DR

The agile consulting trade repackages an at the start human-situated, technology-driven philosophy into a standardized, all-climate undertaking-chance mitigating methodology. bought to command & keep watch over organizations, their heart managers flip “Agile” into a 21. century adoption of Taylorism for information staff. past this meta-degree, the reasons, why engineers despise Agile, fall into five classes: keep watch over, manipulation, monitoring, know-how and teamwork.

the problems Why Engineers Despise Agile

when I wrote Agile Failure Patterns In companies, summarizing standard anti-patterns of agile adoptions in organizations, I was shocked to see the traction it received on HN.

So, I began digging extra into the subject. as much as then, I had been neatly aware about the issues that product people are facing concerning “Agile”. You’re dreaming of a Spotify-like situation to work for, growing products customers love, while if truth be told you’re being stuck in a sort of Jira-monkey position, churning out person-tales.

From that history, engineers have all the time looked to be natural allies for a good lead to to me. Why wouldn’t you need to be empowered, doing meaningful work, and having a goal for your skilled life?

Unsurprisingly, there are moderately some outspoken critics amongst engineers. Don’t get me mistaken: now not all engineers despise Agile. but there are critical considerations being voiced that fall into 5 classes:

I. regulate

the center administration shouldn’t be keen to surrender regulate to empower teams, accordingly contributing to the advent of a learning organization. therefore, the agile top of transparency and radiating data throughout the group in some way results in a rise in surveillance.

II. Manipulation

The pursuit of non-public agendas also drives the employment of exterior consultants to implement the center administration’s point of view of the proper agile process by sticking to the “principles”—aka: cargo cult Agile.

This approach does not totally ignore the Shu-Ha-Ri concept of learning a brand new methodology:

“the fundamental idea right here is that when educating an idea, you need to tailor the style of teaching to the place the learner is in their working out and that development follows a common pattern. Early ranges of finding out center of attention on concrete steps to imitate, the focal point then shifts to understanding rules and ultimately into self-directed innovation.“.

It relatively starts with applying the “rules” by way of the book in segment one and then simply sticks to them, ignoring phases two and three. And by way of doing so, the skeleton Agile is become but every other management style that advocates following a plan—simply in shorter intervals, called sprints.

III. Monitoring

Agile mechanics are adopted on every occasion a good suggestion, however the tradition itself just isn’t changed. in the case of transparency and metrics, the new level of information results in monitoring, and ultimately to micro-administration. this manner, transparency backfires, developing vulnerability as an alternative of probability.

The all vital metrics of Agile are story factors and pace, and Jira acts because the manifestation of the ensuing bureaucratic overhead: have a ticket for each and every and the whole thing to make each engineer’s efficiency visible.

by using making the “tech” visible for non-technical people, it allows those to gain a kind of managerial keep watch over over territory that they could now not exercise sooner than.

built on top of this are pressured commitments while not having the authority to in truth make them occur. principles like staff empowerment, major by using OKRs, and service management subsequently turn into lip-products and services, while micro-management ideas.

IV. technology

Agile fails to deliver–as promised through the Agile Manifesto–an engineering driven development. decisions are still business-driven, made through individuals without an working out of know-how. that includes usually the product owner as well as the center management, or trade analysts.

Agile additionally makes technical debt inevitable, as teams want to deliver each and every dash, most desirable in a technique that dedication matches velocity to make planning and chance mitigation easier for the administration.

V. Teamwork

there is not any room for the person in Agile. It does now not recognize seniority and private boom of the individual engineer, as there are now not tech leads.

as an alternative of “folks & interactions over methods & tools”, Agile turns person builders once more into cogs of the machinery, making the disposable clones inside a kind of nameless course of. Which can be the explanation at the back of shuffling group-participants round upon quick discover.

All this contributes to a lack of ownership: a project is only a checklist of tasks provided by business-individuals, cut up amongst consecutive time-boxes, aka sprints or iterations. Which is the for the reason that projects turn out to be arduous to be hooked in to.

regardless of all loss of possession, group contributors are nevertheless expected to participate actively in ceremonies: from time-ingesting standups and backlog refinements to retrospectives, a sprint-primarily based “self-growth” ritual.

What Are Your ideas?

are you able to educate an outdated (administration) canine, socialized in a command & keep an eye on atmosphere, new agile tips?

to start with, I consider there trap 22: a “good manager” by using conventional requirements is outlined with the aid of knowing what to do and how one can clear up a problem.

Now, what if a brand new idea requires exactly the alternative through admitting she doesn’t be aware of? What whether it is about embracing finding out, experimentation and failure and empowering groups to determine the answer, however not to ship it your self?

So, are we stuck in cargo cult agile for all eternity? Or will it pass all other like different management fads, too? Or shall will we be able to turn the ship round?

in my opinion, I nonetheless consider in George S. Patton’s “Don’t tell folks the way to do issues, tell them what to do and allow them to shock you with their outcomes.” means.

What are your ideas?

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