I'm the guy who curates/maintains Agile In Their Own Words (AITOW).
I started it because at every agile/scrum project after agile/scrum project, I found that development on a technical level went very wrong in the same way over and over again. Predictably. I wanted to write the mother of all essays about why this was , but I couldn't quite put my finger on it (it turns out a lot of agile/scrum dysfuctionality is caused by subtle, 2nd order effects). So I hunted down what hundreds and hundreds of developers said in hundreds of hundreds of social media comments about why agile/scrum was messed things up, and wrote down the very best, most articulate examples that were given in the hopes of someday using it as research for the essay. Many people say "agile sucks"; few people do the work of precisely defining why.
In general, it's hard to find negative comments about agile/scrum because propaganda and fears of retaliation. It's even harder to find negative comments about agile/scrum dysrupts software development on a real-work, on-the-ground technical level.
For example, comments on agile disincentivizing necessary work on LAND (Large Atomic Non-Deliverable) requirements, and the friction LAND's cause between devs and PO's/scrum masters are surprisingly rare, even if the problem is a universal constant on every agile/scrum project I've ever been on. There's other problems, such as stakeholders wanting a detailed daily update and the dev being put into the awkward position of saying they've only read documentation.
Many of the points made in your "Scrum Dad" posts are another example of technical problems agile/scrum causes that don't usually make it past discussions that only touch on agile/scrum as an abstraction layer.
While the entire document is a long read, I'd recommend the reader do it in all the way through in one sitting; they'll notice repeating trends that are often not talked about. The nice thing about using other people's comments is that when someone says "that's just your opinion", you can point them to AITOW and say "it's not just me".
Thanks for commenting on here! And thank you for all your efforts in curating this content! It is such a valuable tool for analyzing the collective discontent in the industry. I agree that it is hard to express why Scrum-like processes are so soul crushing and irrational. As you where quick to notice, that is exactly why I started doing the Scrum Dad dialogues. For some reason it is easier to demonstrate the absurdity of Scrum by putting it into a different context. When you try to talk about it in terms of software engineering, somehow common sense gets lost in the complexity of the work. Keep up the good work! AITOW is awesome!
It's easier to analyze any abstract idea when it's put in social context, because our brains are just wired for understanding social contexts. It's the same if you model process communication as people talking, that's why many protocol descriptions use "Alice" and "Bob" to explain.
You can read more about it in "Extended Mind" by Annie Murphy Paul.
This hits so close to me... for years I felt Scrum/Agile and its twisted variants were actually making devs lives miserable. I even wrote a recopilation of articles and some thoughs on the problems with how Agile-like workflows are implemented in companies (https://failingup.substack.com/p/notes-on-the-corruption-of-agile).
My conclussion is that, in almost every case, it is a disguise for managers to do micromanage the team and to have an excuse for it: "guys, this is how Agile works, we have to follow the sprints and the ceremonies so we can be agile and faster and better!"
P.S.: I hope you don't mind me sharing that post, if so, please remove the link :)
I'm the guy who curates/maintains Agile In Their Own Words (AITOW).
I started it because at every agile/scrum project after agile/scrum project, I found that development on a technical level went very wrong in the same way over and over again. Predictably. I wanted to write the mother of all essays about why this was , but I couldn't quite put my finger on it (it turns out a lot of agile/scrum dysfuctionality is caused by subtle, 2nd order effects). So I hunted down what hundreds and hundreds of developers said in hundreds of hundreds of social media comments about why agile/scrum was messed things up, and wrote down the very best, most articulate examples that were given in the hopes of someday using it as research for the essay. Many people say "agile sucks"; few people do the work of precisely defining why.
In general, it's hard to find negative comments about agile/scrum because propaganda and fears of retaliation. It's even harder to find negative comments about agile/scrum dysrupts software development on a real-work, on-the-ground technical level.
For example, comments on agile disincentivizing necessary work on LAND (Large Atomic Non-Deliverable) requirements, and the friction LAND's cause between devs and PO's/scrum masters are surprisingly rare, even if the problem is a universal constant on every agile/scrum project I've ever been on. There's other problems, such as stakeholders wanting a detailed daily update and the dev being put into the awkward position of saying they've only read documentation.
Many of the points made in your "Scrum Dad" posts are another example of technical problems agile/scrum causes that don't usually make it past discussions that only touch on agile/scrum as an abstraction layer.
While the entire document is a long read, I'd recommend the reader do it in all the way through in one sitting; they'll notice repeating trends that are often not talked about. The nice thing about using other people's comments is that when someone says "that's just your opinion", you can point them to AITOW and say "it's not just me".
Thanks for commenting on here! And thank you for all your efforts in curating this content! It is such a valuable tool for analyzing the collective discontent in the industry. I agree that it is hard to express why Scrum-like processes are so soul crushing and irrational. As you where quick to notice, that is exactly why I started doing the Scrum Dad dialogues. For some reason it is easier to demonstrate the absurdity of Scrum by putting it into a different context. When you try to talk about it in terms of software engineering, somehow common sense gets lost in the complexity of the work. Keep up the good work! AITOW is awesome!
It's easier to analyze any abstract idea when it's put in social context, because our brains are just wired for understanding social contexts. It's the same if you model process communication as people talking, that's why many protocol descriptions use "Alice" and "Bob" to explain.
You can read more about it in "Extended Mind" by Annie Murphy Paul.
This hits so close to me... for years I felt Scrum/Agile and its twisted variants were actually making devs lives miserable. I even wrote a recopilation of articles and some thoughs on the problems with how Agile-like workflows are implemented in companies (https://failingup.substack.com/p/notes-on-the-corruption-of-agile).
My conclussion is that, in almost every case, it is a disguise for managers to do micromanage the team and to have an excuse for it: "guys, this is how Agile works, we have to follow the sprints and the ceremonies so we can be agile and faster and better!"
P.S.: I hope you don't mind me sharing that post, if so, please remove the link :)
Thanks for posting the link. It's always good to share information!