Jaycie (Squid Mode)Dec 29, 2017

If you want to understand how *easy* it is to fail at agile, answer this question:

Can the developers* decline** to implement a feature without political consequences?

* Not their manager. The developers.
** Not just put it in the backlog but actually declare "It won't be implemented." No asking again later.

Unless you can answer "yes" (and have enough insight into the org and its stakeholders to give a definitive answer) then everything else is just going through the agile motions.

Show threadMaciekDec 29, 2017
@jaycie It is not up to them to decline. They can inform the manager or Scrum master that they're not happy with it and she can discuss it with the people making decisions, so maybe they'll change their mind, but all in all of the company wants the feature and pays for it, the programmers are bound to implement it.
Show threadJaycie (Squid Mode)Dec 30, 2017
@makingthematrix That's a restating of the usual hierarchical, top-down relationship between business owners and employees, not an actual counterpoint. The demonstrable incompatibility was the point.
Show threadMaciek
@jaycie It's different if you work on a project in your free time, but we all have only 24h/day and have to eat. We could get money from other sources, decoupled from our work results: basic income, or some sort of "patreon for IT". But anyway I don't think it's a good idea to give programmers the right to say "we won't do it" and that's it. Too risky. When they join a project they should agree that sometimes they will have to do things they're not very happy about.
Dec 30, 2017 at 1:43am◆ Tootdon ◆
Show threadJaycie (Squid Mode)Dec 30, 2017
@makingthematrix You could use that line of reasoning to justify making an employee do anything, up to and including unethical behavior. That kind of thinking gets us Uber. And again, that's just restating the current state of things.
Show threadMaciekDec 30, 2017
@jaycie Yes. I think Agile is not a silver bullet. You can still do bad things with Agile, just as with any other methodology. (And sorry, I think I missed some of your previous toots, and maybe that's why I'm not sure why you write about the "current state of things").
Show threadJaycie (Squid Mode)Dec 30, 2017
@makingthematrix I agree that agile is no silver bullet. Even if it was, a lot of companies/governments/etc. are arming their developers with the organizational equivalents of blow darts, so all that potential is wasted.