Agile, as implemented in every big company that I've worked for, was a lie.

It was really telling at a smaller company that was trying to behave like a big company. I asked a coworker (who had great metrics) what the secret was for dealing with the middle-management-heavy and quite dysfunctional environment. He told me how he did it. Paraphrased: "It's easy. During each sprint, I work on the next sprint's work. Once it's complete I'll know how to make sure things match the work that's already been done and that way its always a bullseye and on time - because the work is already done.". Agile at that company was a joke to the people who got things done, and was a weapon used against people who didn't realise it in time. It sure generated a lot of metrics and stats though. I used to joke amongst coworkers that the company produced metrics, not products.

▲

cbg0 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I've also seen agile hollowed out to become a metric delivery system that keeps managers happy; They know what everyone is doing but it keeps upper management happy to see those metrics trend upwards so the wheel keeps spinning. The actual product ends up being a byproduct of the stats.

▲

brigandish 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

How did he see into the future to know which work he'd be doing on the next sprint, and how did he also finish the current sprint's work with a bullseye thus allowing the next sprint's to begin and match it?

▲

mitthrowaway2 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

From my reading, it's really quite brilliant. He just says that he's about to start the tasks that, in reality, he's just finishing up. Then he delays reporting that the task is done. His estimates are then always made with perfect hindsight.

	▲	zelphirkalt 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		This only works though, if one is working in isolation and no one else checks out the work before the time one commits to the work. That would mean being some lone expert in that part of the product, which is not a good sign for the business, because bus factors of 1.

▲

Cthulhu_ 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's the neat part of agile / scrum / whatever at larger companies, they don't actually change priorities much from one sprint to the next unless there's a major external factor like an outage. Larger companies like to be able to look ahead, at least a quarter but ideally a year or more.

At my current contract we use "SAFe", "scaled agile framework" which basically revolves around quarterly plannings, but above that is a long term planning of course. (energy industry, scale of hundreds of engineers)

▲

tass 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Not the op, but you only commit to what you already did in this sprint.

So this sprint shows what you delivered 2 sprints ago, next sprint will be the work you just finished.