Comments on: Why your organisation won’t be agile – Part I

By: Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:50:16 +0000

What’s wrong with Golf Course Agile? It’s a simple truth that not every organization is prepared for (or will succeed with) self-organizing teams, pair programming, etc.

Having said that, I would suggest that ALL software development organizations will benefit from visibility, predictability, repeatability, and dare I say *Software Production Management*

By: james

james — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:27:36 +0000

Hey Robert – glad you enjoyed the post. You are absolutely correct in this – and this is certainly one of the failure modes for projects that I see. How can you expect people to execute something they have never seen work? I’m going to talk about this a bit more in my next post I think.

By: MyWeeklyLinks – Week 6 « Ole Morten Amundsen

MyWeeklyLinks – Week 6 « Ole Morten Amundsen — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:16:40 +0000

[...] Why your organisation won’t be agile Attacking mainstream agile. Or, really, the mainstream implementation of [...]

By: Robert Reppel

Robert Reppel — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:27:12 +0000

I find that keeping a project in “pull” mode instead slipping back into “push” is an ongoing struggle: The need for (perceived) security and predictability constantly railroads folks into the direction of making a “traditional” project plan with tasks broken down and assigned several weeks in advance and written-in-stone dates where a set of specified-in-advance features need to be available.

Indeed, courage seems to be the least fashionable part of Agile, for very good reasons: The “traditional” way to run a project feels intuitive to most managers because they usually have never seen anything that works better. They rightly think that using no project plan at all will lead to chaos. By comparison, getting one’s ducks in a row by waterfall planning and assigning tasks in advance will work much better. Ergo, projects fail because not enough of that was done. These are deeply held convictions, seemingly backed up by experience. Building a case for doing things differently can be a livelihood-threatening exercise. When management mandates agile practices it’s far safer to go the Scrummerfall or “Cargo Cult Agile” route instead.

By: Most Tweeted Articles by Agile Development Experts: MrTweet

Most Tweeted Articles by Agile Development Experts: MrTweet — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 10:01:06 +0000

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By: Living Your Values, Part I

Living Your Values, Part I — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 02:49:44 +0000

[...] [...]

By: Herberth Amaral

Herberth Amaral — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:58:09 +0000

Sure, it is hard to see collaboration and trust in software companies… and most people don’t understant that’s crucial for any kind of business, not only software.

Nice post.

By: Soon To Be A Thoughtworker

Soon To Be A Thoughtworker — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:14:29 +0000

I’m living this world right now, and it’s precisely why I’m joining ThoughtWorks on 3/15. Hard keeping a poker face through our scrums these days.

By: wes williams

wes williams — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 03:08:57 +0000

seems to be a lot of people writing about this again. i think continually reminding the community of this is good. all areas that require discipline need someone reminding us and keeping us accountable to the goals, values, principles and the practices. so keep it up.

By: Agile abuse « Nick Oostvogels’s Weblog

Agile abuse « Nick Oostvogels’s Weblog — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:15:43 +0000

[...] James Lewis points out (great post by the way!), it’s not agile going mainstream, but iterative [...]