
Agile is Dead - sant0sk1
http://agilesoftwaredevelopment.com/blog/janusz-gorycki/agile-dead
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andreyf
I still don't understand what Agile is :( Good thing I sling code better than
I sling adjectives :)

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tophat02
Agile(n): a buzzword used preemptively on a project to remove accountability
when things inevitably go wrong.

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DanielBMarkham
Funny.

The author is as bad as those he makes fun of -- he has a list of things that
obviously CAN'T be agile and uses that as a discussion point. Agile RUP? Been
around for years. The true-blue RUP guys will tell you RUP has always been
agile, it's just never practiced that way and the corporate pointy-heads make
it into a monster. Agile Maturity Model? Lots of companies already have one.
Maturity model just means some way of measuring how well the teams are doing.
Certification? Heck, this certification bandwagon has always been lucrative,
and now it's just getting worse.

Agile works because _agile has always worked, even before there was some lame-
ass marketing phrase called "agile"_. That means your grand-dad working on the
Apollo moon shot probably used some agile techniques, as did guys on the
Manhattan project.

He's absolutely right that corporate America is killing agile. But they've
been killing agile for so long it isn't funny. This is a problem that has to
do with really smart people and their desire to measure and control. It's
really a problem with, guess what, us. As technology wonks we're the first to
want to create a new metric or standardize something that doesn't need
standardizing.

As for the proliferation of certifications, do what I do: just say no. I'm not
going to play that game. When you ask me about agile, I'll happily share the
actual projects and work I produced, but I'm not going to spend good money
buying useless pieces of paper.

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mncaudill
What book would you suggest as a good starting point for good Agile
techniques?

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ROFISH
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development#Agil...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development#Agile_methods)

You don't really need a book. The Agile page on Wikipedia and links to the
descriptions of the different flavors are all you need.

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huherto
It is true, agile may not sound innovative anymore. Nevertheless, the
principles are sound. If you care about your craft, keep practicing it.
edit:grammar

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stcredzero
In short: everyone has co-opted the names! That's not doom. Just chalk up
another victory and let's come up with some more names. Pair those with
versions of the practices that big companies will be too corpulent to
implement, and let's have another go!

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alexgartrell
I don't know if I've ever been wholly convinced that certifications do more
good than harm, especially in Soft things like Product Management (as opposed
to something more clear, like plumbing).

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inerte
Certifications (well, depend on the cert) for "soft things" are generally used
by companies to get everyone talking the same language.

I'm a code/architect guy, with a make-it-work-now personality, so I'm more
used to say "let's get Bob to fix this shit".

But my girlfriend is into IT process, and we're getting an ITIL certification
together, because where she works (HP) they do a lot of ITIL. So she and her
team talk about how the "Service Desk" should scalate "Change" to a "Problem"
or "Incident", which I think are all funny words, but helps everyone to get
into the same flow together and makes communication easier.

I like my way (d'uh), but that's because my way of doing things have worked so
far for my things that needed to be done (pretty philosofical statement!),
while obviously her ways have worked for her. In the end, if it's delivered,
and the client pay and he's happy, I could care less what's the terminology.

