You Call This Agile?

JoelonSoftware's most recent piece is about some of the fallacies in "Agile" software and some of the issues within it. We use Agile in some parts of the company, and have had success with that -- that said, there's always the peril that happens when development and other parts of the company have...miscommunication, which sounds like the problem described in Joel's piece.

Comments

What universe did this come from?

[autophile]

From TFA:

This Is Why Programmers Get The Big Bucks. The whole reason you gave them Aeron chairs, unlimited M&Ms, free catered lunches, and the kickass computers with the 30" LCDs...

Leakage from an alternate universe far from our own?

...is so they can deal with new bugs Microsoft introduced in their code by messing up a DLL that used to work.

Okay, it's a universe very close to our own.

--Rob

Re:fallacies don't exist within methodologies

[RingDev]

No offence meant to your friend, there are many people who have a knack for project management, but... Methodologies are kind of like stories. There are only a handful of distinct stories to have ever existed, every other story in existence is merely a slight modification or attempt at recreation of one of those original stories. While your friend may not have researched and followed any specific methodology, he likely practiced one with out even knowing it.

In defense of "Agile", it can be (agile). But it takes the right mindset from the developers, project manager, upper management and customers. Agile will not succeed in environments where anyone in that chain does not have the "Agile" mindset.

-Rick