Agile Conspiracy

Wow, this article really blows the whole Agile debate wide open.

Posted by Chris Tyler  on Mon 30th October 2006 at 03:41 PM | #

Hi Kevin,

Assuming that the majority of readers of agile-related posts are likely to be agile practitioners, we can perhaps hypothesise another reason why they get so many pro-agile comments?

Possible non-sinister reasons agilists comment on blogs so much:

1. They’ve seen agile methods work and want to tell people about it
2. The sort of people attracted to agile really like to talk
3. We all spend WAY too much time geeking out (case in point- I’m currently on my lunch break)
4. When we see someone slating something we find useful- especially (as is often the case) because they’re misinformed- we get itchy to correct them

I notice you spend a fair amount of time writing your blog and responding to posts (I wish more bloggers would get involved like this in the discussions their posts generate). From reading your stuff, I can see this is because you’re passionate about our craft- same thing goes for most of us geeks, right?

Speaking personally, since beginning to use agile development techniques a few years ago I find I enjoy my job a lot more, get more done and produce better code. This makes me want to tell people about it. I also have a fair amount of experience in the area and so am more likely to feel qualified to comment.

There’s an awareness in the agile community that it’s easy to mistake the enthusiasm with which people embrace agile for dogmatic zeal. I can assure you that for most of the folks I know this enthusiasm stems more from concrete results and pragmatism than it does from unquestioning faith.

Full disclosure here- I used to work for ThoughtWorks, but I don’t now. I don’t know whether that makes me part of the conspiracy or not, but at least you can make your own mind up.

In any case, thanks for keeping us agilists on our toes- I notice you’ve been the catalyst for a number of extremely productive discussions and I’m slowly working my way through your old posts now. All very interesting.

Matt

Posted by Matt Savage  on Thu 16th November 2006 at 01:16 PM | #

Hi Matt,

Sorry for coming back late on your comments but I have been ill with the worst case of Flu I can remember and when you combine this with Jet lag believe me when I say that I feel like I   have been slammed in the head by a truck. Well today I feel much better and can’t wait to get back to my blog and its growing readership.

I would like to thank you for your recent comment which was very interesting and a valuable contribution to the pro Agile /anti Agile debate.

In response to the first part of your comment, I want to state for the record that your alternative reasons why people might wish to comment on an Agile post are all true and I have never claimed anything to the contrary. Equally your list could equally be applied to the reasoning behind commenting on any IT related blog post.

The issue is that there is a great deal of difference between at the extreme end passionate commenting and organised blog “crushing” where posting of defamatory and libelling   remarks which are vitriolic and aggressive in nature are the order of the day (the worst of these have been removed). The regulars who engage in this kind of gorilla commenting attack other blogs in an organised way and coordinate the troops through the use of bulletin boards. Quite insidious and scary in my view !!. No wonder I receive emails from developers frightened to speak out (some I am sure you will know with reference to your past) about issues surrounding Agile and its band of approved methodologies and team management techniques.

You have to read blogs like Steve Yegge Blogspot which really puts a man on the spots view on this crazy revolution and my posts such as Agile Scrum Fails To Get to Grips with Human Psychology
and Taylor vs Deming & Software Development Part 2 comments in order to get a real feel for how these organised Agile gorilla’s work.

My humble observations’ concerning this brand of Agile Evangelist runs as follows–

There’s only three things which would provoke me into getting involved in a verbal torrent of abuse running into volumes which has been tagged onto many of my Agile posts.

- Someone steeling my property or my money
- Someone steeling my woman
- Someone threatening myself or my family with intimidation or violence.

Taking this into account and the behavior is indeed perplexing and very strange and because at the end of the day these people don’t know me and the behavior can’t be motivated by (2) or (3)  . 

It’s transparent!!!!!!!!!

I must be a threat to these guys revenue stream. It’s the only thing that fits. 

This stuff is a poor advertisement for Agile. Who frankly would want to employ consultants who are so aggressive about anything other than there own points of view.

I am just interested in constructive criticism of development and project management methods so they can be seen warts and all and therefore applied where they can do the most good. I have made many points on my blog about the new media industry and egg.com and wonderful companies like these that keep their projects small and where, Agile can work wonders (so can just about anything else work when you employ talented people).
I am only critical and a skeptic as are many on the net these days concerning Agile’s scalability and the limitations of many of the Agile approved iterative development methods. I have views and I am entitled to post my observations and I don’t care if they are fee earning or not “let right be done” for the good of the industry and all those poor developers who email me frightened to speak out about Agile.

Your comments on Thoughtworks are interesting. All I wish to say about these guys is that I know them well and it’s interesting that they choose Chicago as the location for their head office . I can’t say any more about these guys unless you want to come out with me for a coffee sometime.

To get an idea why Agile and the Manifesto is a gift from the Gods of Management Consulting please read my post on the Agile Fees Feeding Frenzy  where I explore the exploitation of the Agile Manifesto by the Consultancies and Software Houses as a means to an end :-

A fee earning bonanza if you ask me!!

Posted by Kevin Brady  on Tue 21st November 2006 at 11:20 AM | #

I have read your blogs and associated posts on Agile methods and Scrum.  I have used a few minor XP methods in the past and have found that the developers tend to enjoy Agile/XP methods.  Pair programming for example is beneficial to the company through shared knowledge and minimizing mistakes and beneficial to the developer in that they often enjoy working together (but not everyone).  I have been asked to try Scrum on our next project and have read Schwaber’s book on the subject.  I have some reservations on attempting it on my upcoming project.  I believe that a iterative development lifecycle will produce several of the benefits touted by Scrum but still allow for traditional project management.  I wonder if some of the proponents of Agile/Scrum have invested heavily in it, calling yourself a Scrum master for example, that should Scrum fall out of favor it would render the Scrum efforts and training to be useless.  Thus the proponents have a vested interest in keeping it alive.  I am not sure if we will use it in the future or not but I certainly have an open mind about using any Agile method, however, I believe the quality of the development team and of the project manager goes a long way toward predicting project success over and above whatever method is used.

Posted by Bob Arnold  on Tue 13th February 2007 at 07:45 PM | #

Anything beneficial is costly that’s my opinion.

Posted by sabinuta  on Wed 28th November 2007 at 04:18 PM | #