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webcowgirlYesterday afternoon I left work a little early to go to a talk on "Why Agile Teams Fail." I went with four of my coworkers who are on the Agile project we're having shoved down our throats at work and met ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wechsler there. The talk was good: as I thought, what we're doing at work has little to do with Agile per se and a whole lot to do with "using catch-phrases that let us ignore the spirit of the whole thing." So we're being graded on whether or not we have white boards to put our issues on and whether or not QA is running meetings to measure "quality" but ignoring the important stuff like "let developers drive what is happening" and "be flexible." On the other hand, I got the great idea of having lava lamps sitting in my team's area to show whether or not we have a working build in QA: a blue lava lamp for yes, a red lava lamp for no. And my efforts to keep team morale high may be far more important than I've ever suspected.
Unfortunately the talk did go for two entire hours, and as I hadn't had anything to eat (no money in my wallet, very bad), I was near dead from hunger long before the talk wrapped up and had little option but to go get some food immediately afterwards. This meant another trip to the Japanese restaurantshadowdaddy and I went to Friday night, and this time wechsler got the five-kinds-of-sushi-don and I got entirely new things, such as mini-chicken teriyaki, pork belly skewers, duck skewers, and quail egg skewers. It was so lovely and homey; all I wanted to do is order more plum wine and sit there and chat all night long.
Well, the bad part is that I didn't get back to the flat until WAY too late, and it took me a while to chill out, and even though I tried to get into bed in short order, I was too cold, it was too noisy, EVERYTHING worked against me and I think I've had about six hours of sleep (I know I slept because I was dreaming about Dawn dolls and Chicago and horseback riding). It's not a good way to start the day at the office that's devoted to report writing, and not a good way to set myself up for a night at the ballet, but ... what am I supposed to do. At least I feel empowered to send an email out about the talk last night that's going to be a big stick right up the ass of Mr. Pink Cuffs.
wechsler there. The talk was good: as I thought, what we're doing at work has little to do with Agile per se and a whole lot to do with "using catch-phrases that let us ignore the spirit of the whole thing." So we're being graded on whether or not we have white boards to put our issues on and whether or not QA is running meetings to measure "quality" but ignoring the important stuff like "let developers drive what is happening" and "be flexible." On the other hand, I got the great idea of having lava lamps sitting in my team's area to show whether or not we have a working build in QA: a blue lava lamp for yes, a red lava lamp for no. And my efforts to keep team morale high may be far more important than I've ever suspected.Unfortunately the talk did go for two entire hours, and as I hadn't had anything to eat (no money in my wallet, very bad), I was near dead from hunger long before the talk wrapped up and had little option but to go get some food immediately afterwards. This meant another trip to the Japanese restaurant
shadowdaddy and I went to Friday night, and this time wechsler got the five-kinds-of-sushi-don and I got entirely new things, such as mini-chicken teriyaki, pork belly skewers, duck skewers, and quail egg skewers. It was so lovely and homey; all I wanted to do is order more plum wine and sit there and chat all night long.Well, the bad part is that I didn't get back to the flat until WAY too late, and it took me a while to chill out, and even though I tried to get into bed in short order, I was too cold, it was too noisy, EVERYTHING worked against me and I think I've had about six hours of sleep (I know I slept because I was dreaming about Dawn dolls and Chicago and horseback riding). It's not a good way to start the day at the office that's devoted to report writing, and not a good way to set myself up for a night at the ballet, but ... what am I supposed to do. At least I feel empowered to send an email out about the talk last night that's going to be a big stick right up the ass of Mr. Pink Cuffs.
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Date: 2007-06-07 07:40 pm (UTC)It's all bullshit as far as I'm concerned. If projects are well-planned and well-documented, everyone can do his or her job successfully. When people start short-cutting planning or documentation you end up with stuff which is difficult at best to extend and maintain; and when people go to the other extreme, you get 'analysis paralysis' and navel-gazing induced churn. Find the middle ground- don't over-document, but don't under-document; make sure you provide the person at the next step with the degree of information you wanted to get from the people at the preceding one, and it all works out. Except that we don't live in a vacuum, and getting what you want will probably require collaboration and negotiation.