Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Agile FAIL!

Sometimes I feel like a fireman... I read things that just don't make sense and I want to pour water on it and put the fire out. I have slowly come to realize that there are more voices proclaiming stupid things about agile than I can counter.

Let me share with you what bothered me today...
Agilists seem intent on advocating their rather extreme view of agile including no documentation, little planning or architectural design and less control. The mantra is ‘give the software developers free reign and you will get better software’.
Yeah... this is a FAIL! (on the part of the "Agilists")
Most IT projects exist to enhance the capability of the organization.
I'm not completely sure what "IT project" means in this context... but they don't exist for the organization. All projects are about business value and enabling profit.

Partial Fail?
...at the very least a minimum of documentation to prove the IT team and its immediate customers understand their scope of work and other constraints and know how they will achieve the outcomes needed...
Documentation is needed in a minimal sense... but whatever happened to working, accepted, purchased software as the best measurement?

Partial Fail!
The agile extremists may do well to consider [self discipline] and focus on meeting the needs and expectations of all of the stakeholders involved in their work.
Very good point. Whoever this person got their impression of agile from.... VERY BIG FAIL!

2 comments:

  1. So where did this analyst post? Link-backs are good..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah... I don't like to create flame wars... so I decided to protect the innocent and not do that for once. I normally do link back.

    ReplyDelete