Gotta love being "Agile"

Im sitting in a standup now, listening to these idiotic PMs waffling on. We have raised that we have not yet received finalized requirements, what we received is a rough idea, missing all the meat. "Someone" commited to a March release. We informed them to go and tell whomever that it is not going to happen. No way we can dev and get all of this tested in time. Do you think they are listening?

Hell no, we are told that we are agile, we must work with what we have and 'evolve' as we get more info. We cant go back on committed dates. Hell we didnt even commit to it.

When asking okey if we pull this in what do we drop? We can only work on so many story points at a time. Nope sorry, nothing can be dropped. everything is priority nr 1.

So now we will just have to wait post March release and then nicely inform whomever that nothing went in.
 
Harmonic said:
"Agile" is a cancer to high performing teams. Feel really bad for everyone still having to endure this crap
Click to expand...
It only really works for developers who have nothing else but code to worry about and even then it just brings up the average of dysfunctional teams and like you say brings down the high performers.

My team is renowned for not using agile and in the same breath getting **** done.
 
Die Uwe said:
Im sitting in a standup now, listening to these idiotic PMs waffling on. We have raised that we have not yet received finalized requirements, what we received is a rough idea, missing all the meat. "Someone" commited to a March release. We informed them to go and tell whomever that it is not going to happen. No way we can dev and get all of this tested in time. Do you think they are listening?

Hell no, we are told that we are agile, we must work with what we have and 'evolve' as we get more info. We cant go back on committed dates. Hell we didnt even commit to it.

When asking okey if we pull this in what do we drop? We can only work on so many story points at a time. Nope sorry, nothing can be dropped. everything is priority nr 1.

So now we will just have to wait post March release and then nicely inform whomever that nothing went in.
Click to expand...
Why are the PMs in your standup?
 
Agile works well when a framework is adhered to properly.

The reasons mentioned above all break the methodology and mean the company isn't following agile nor a framework and there would be problems no matter what methodology or framework is followed.
 
The PMs are in the Project standup, not our team's standup. They call it a standup, it is actually just a normal meeting pre-agile.

And the PMs are here because no one had the guts to fire them when they realize they are not needed. So they are being entertained while adding no value, much like most politicians.
 
Willie Trombone said:
That's not an agile issue. That's a PM issue.
Click to expand...
PMs are killing this place. They are part of the problem, the other part is that business thinks they can now come up with one liner "requirements" and change the one liner at any time seeing that we are "agile"
 
I've worked in well functioning SCRUM but you need all the right people. If you are short in any area it falls apart and you end up with ceremonies for nothing.
 
Willie Trombone said:
Nothing wrong with changing requirements, provided you can change budget and timeframe to match. Agile is designed (among other things) to highlight issues early on for all concerned so that you can adapt.
Click to expand...
I fully agree and fully understand. The problem comes in (as with many other things) when people just take the part of the concept that they like and reject the rest.

For example thinking that you can change requirements on a massive project a month before go live that requires a major rework and still get it on the requested date.
 
Die Uwe said:
I fully agree and fully understand. The problem comes in (as with many other things) when people just take the part of the concept that they like and reject the rest.

For example thinking that you can change requirements on a massive project a month before go live that requires a major rework and still get it on the requested date.
Click to expand...

Been there, literally got fired for telling my manager no.
 
Very few large organisations in SA follow pure scrum, however if you are delivering it doesn’t matter – that’s the most important thing at the end of the day and it’s what I always tell my scrum teams. I’m an SM in a large corporate, and my teams too don’t follow it to the strictest form. There has to be a balance between adhering to the methodology but at the same time moulding the methodology to work with the culture within the organization and team. That being said, I wouldn’t blame agile and scrum as a methodology when in fact it is the poor implementation thereof and/or other delivery aspects unrelated to agile that seem to be the cause of your frustration.
 
Deefish said:
Very few large organisations in SA follow pure scrum, however if you are delivering it doesn’t matter – that’s the most important thing at the end of the day and it’s what I always tell my scrum teams. I’m an SM in a large corporate, and my teams too don’t follow it to the strictest form. There has to be a balance between adhering to the methodology but at the same time moulding the methodology to work with the culture within the organization and team. That being said, I wouldn’t blame agile and scrum as a methodology when in fact it is the poor implementation thereof and/or other delivery aspects unrelated to agile that seem to be the cause of your frustration.
Click to expand...

Me too, what colour is your corporate?
 
Deefish said:
Very few large organisations in SA follow pure scrum, however if you are delivering it doesn’t matter – that’s the most important thing at the end of the day and it’s what I always tell my scrum teams. I’m an SM in a large corporate, and my teams too don’t follow it to the strictest form. There has to be a balance between adhering to the methodology but at the same time moulding the methodology to work with the culture within the organization and team. That being said, I wouldn’t blame agile and scrum as a methodology when in fact it is the poor implementation thereof and/or other delivery aspects unrelated to agile that seem to be the cause of your frustration.
Click to expand...

You cannot mould a framework and still say you are doing that framework though. You have then created your own framework. Scrum as an example has very specific ceremonies, roles and responsibilities and when you break any of them there are consequences. If you replaced what you removed then you have your own framework that may or may not work for you.
 
die_koos said:
You cannot have an "Agile" team in a waterfall company. Either everybody is Agile, or nobody is.
Click to expand...

That usually the biggest issue. They call it Wagile. The authority dynamics are hierarchical which is all wrong and the team cant operate as intended.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X