Beware of Agile software development experts who are pseudo-Masters, said Agile Manifesto co-signer Jon Kern, who will dissect today’s burgeoning “I hate Agile” movement at TheServerSide Java Symposium next week. The current backlash against Agile can be placed partially on the heads of under-trained, under-experienced Agile coaches, Scrum Masters and the like, as well as the quick-fix-it attitudes of the organizations that hire them. In general, many expect miracle results if Agile tenets are followed rigidly, an approach that’s opposite of the flexible way Agile should be practiced.

“There are about 100,000 certified Scrum masters out there now,” said Java and Agile development veteran Kern in a recent TheServerSide.com interview. “So, part of me says, ‘Great, there are people out there drumming the Agile message.’ But, then, part of me says, ‘Are they really masters? Or, do they just have a couple of days of training under their belts?”

In this interview, Kern discusses how the Agile leadership problem came to be and ways to avoid leadership-driven Agile software project failures. Kern is co-author of the Agile Manifesto for Software Development and the book, Java Design: Building Better Apps and Applets.

Read the full interview here: Jon Kern takes on the anti-agile movement

By the way, it's not too late to register for TSSJS 2011. It starts on Wednesday, so don't delay!

Register for TheServerSide Java Symposium

Let me give another reason of Anti-Agile Movement.

There are just too many people in Software Development who can only talk and never get things done. They see Agile and its approach of just getting things done as a threat to their job stability.

Some are smart and label themselves Agile Coaches, label the development environment as Agile and still fail and at the same time give Agile a bad name, then they join the Anti-Agile Movement by blaming it for their own incompetence.

Unfortunately companies are not ready for just getting things done too. Its very difficult for top management to grasp the fact that the project can just get done in 6 months with the right people vs 6 years of continues useless meetings, architectural discussions and mismanagement. 

I agree with Tsolak.  I know of one particular project where we "just got things done" in phase 1 and then watched in disbelief while management brought in outside "experts" who set up heavyweight processes and lots of meetings in phase 2 - which subsequently failed.  Know what I'm talking about?

Another area where this kind of thing happens is fighting viruses.  The root of most virus problems are Microsoft operating systems.  Instead of addressing the root cause companies create mini-bureaucracies whose existance depends completely on fighting viruses on Microsoft operating systems.  When I point out to them that if they phased out Microsoft operating systems (like Google is doing) their problem would go away or be much smaller.  They always say that it is impossible to phase out Microsoft operating systems, and that the next version of Windows, Exchange, Office, or whatever will reduce the problem.

The bureaucracy perpetuates itself by keeping the problem alive, morphing it into something slightly different.  They don't want to transform things so the problem eventually goes away.  It is similar to the case where agile is merely added onto a dysfunctional system, rather than transforming the system into something better.

 

 

 

Agile, Scrum, Kanban...whatever is suspiciously becoming filled with a lot of religion-like dogma.   Look at all the crap that is going on with the Scrum alliance - http://www.infoq.com/news/2010/10/tobias-mayer-part1

Agile is snake oil. People buy it once or twice but quickly discover it's no remedy. The snake oil salesmen, a.k.a. Scrum masters, need to look for the next fad and repeat the game.

In the end it all boils down to the people. Have great people on the projectit it is likely to be sucessful. Regardless of methodology. Greate people benefit from agile methodologies so that a project will be even more likely to be scuccessful. That's why agile is good. It will not compensate for mediocre or weak people, though.

Hi Everyone:

I can't make it to TSSJS this year. (Too bad because its a great conference.) Is TSS going to do coverage of the conference here?

-Frank

Beware the agile zealots. It's not that they're ignorant of agile or bad at it, it's that agile is the only tool in their box. And with that' they ignore the larger corporate ecosystems in which they live where you have to do design upfront so enterprise architecture can review and approve the proposed solution, DBAs can start building tables, and all the other activities in large enterprises can commence. And I think this is where agile typically falls on it's face, when trying to be agile in environments for which it's not a good fit. Know the limits of your tool and learn other methodologies so you're not a one trick pony. These are the guys that give agile a bad name in my opinion, the guys that want to start wars with the enterprise support teams so they can write whatever they want however they want and expect the enterprise to conform to their desires. The world doesn't work that way.

"And I think this is where agile typically falls on it's face, when trying to be agile in environments for which it's not a good fit."

It is not a good fit for most companies that have more than 10 developers.  I'm convinced that the #1 reason companies go to agile is management has been sold that it is the 'silver bullet'.

This video, although funny, has a great message in it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvks70PD0Rs