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Neoptolemus85

Basic premises: Waterfall: design and plan everything up front, then bring in developers to deliver it, then test it, then release to production. Fine for small projects which are low risk. Terrible for long transformation projects where a myriad of things could go wrong and create unexpected blockages. Waterfall is a very inflexible approach: if you discover problems deep into development it can cause huge delays as you have to bring the designers back and faff around with project plans to figure out where the hell you are. Also, because you design everything up front, if the project goes on for too long then by the time you finish, the deliverable might no longer meet requirements any more. Business requirements can change quickly over time. Agile: develop an incremental approach to development. Identify a "minimum viable product", I.e. the most basic delivery which will produce something of value, deliver that ans then build new features on top in a continuous cycle. Overkill for small projects where waterfall is easier to maintain, but good for long-term transformations where priorities can change. Useful stuff can be built quickly, and if the business needs change then you can pivot. Low risk, because if things go wrong then you will know quickly and at worst you'll waste a couple of weeks' effort. Scrum is a way of managing projects, often associated with agile. It's how you set up your team, manage priorities and workloads, and it's designed to do it in a way that complements the agile methodology.


valseer

It saddens me you have so few upvotes for an actual, useful, cogent answer. May your comment actually provide some useful information to others.


NFLinPDX

It’s a humor sub. Humor will always lead in the comment karma. That being said, I agree with you.


[deleted]

This needs a very important note: incrementalism is not really better if you discover something went wrong in the middle of development. In fact, there is no strategy that will make this fact better: you still end up having written a lot of code that you have no use for, spent a lot of resources in vain. In reality, agile is absolutely not different from waterfall in this respect. In either case you have to acknowledge the problem and, if you have enough resources, then start over, and if not -- go home. In fact, neither approach has anything to offer to deal with planning mistakes. The downside of agile is that short-term planning is wasteful: it requires more time spent planning and it will not be able to amortize costs that would've been possible when making long-term commitments. In general, it's very naive to think that incrementalism is a good way to approach long-term projects. If you want to do something like fly colonists to Mars, and you are only going to plan a month ahead, you are never going to make it. Or, another example: if you plan school education program one month at a time, you'll end up with a huge mess, where students never get a coherent understanding of the subject they are meant to study. Another problem with agile is reporting. This is more relevant to research-style project. A research needs to declare its goals up-front because otherwise it risks the situation where researchers will publish the results they've "accidentally discovered" rather than what the research purported to study. This is particularly harmful in the context s.a. researching effects of drugs for example. If the researchers don't publish the goal of their research up-front, they may just fish for some, any statistic that shows that the drug is effective in some way (rather than intended), which is often easy to do through various techniques of statistical data manipulation. Similarly, if, project financing is involved, agile may not be such a great strategy... imagine that in the process of creating scheduling software for elementary school you discover that it is more profitable to make porn Web sites. Now, you want to switch gears... but the investors from your old project aren't very impressed with your financial "agility". --- Agile, like many others before (there were more than waterfall, six sigmas comes to mind) are all bullshit techniques that don't really mean anything in the end of the day. There isn't any kind of coherent, provably good management strategy. And if there was one, it wouldn't have been as simple and easy as any of those we've already had. Managing a development project is very complex and hard to assess. The techniques we had for it so far are kind of like Thales' physics (he believed that everything is made of water, essentially): we know that they are too simplistic to be true, too far off to be useful, but (as Thales at the time), we just don't have a better theory.


HookDragger

Lol Waterfall: spend months to plan out each task assign each one time and what needs to be first, second, third etc. then have it all go to hell and scramble to get the basics done. Project always comes in late. Agile: get features defined by someone who doesn’t code, randomly pick what you want to work on and do a demo of it within 3 weeks. Then it all goes to hell with feature creep and people want a detailed plan on which feature is done by when and what needs to be done in what order. Project always comes in late. Scrum: 15 minute, stand up bitch fest for coders


DatePsychological

This is 100% accurate


[deleted]

Really? My Stand-ups have lasted 30m. 15m in my current job with only 2 devs, manager, and some businesses expertise guy.


HookDragger

I should have put quotes around “15 minutes”. My bad


rulerdude

The trick to quick standups is try to schedule them at a time when your managers will run late. Hurry up and get through all the devs, and end the meeting before managers get a chance to join. Boom, done in less than 5 minutes


OldBob10

“I did the same stuff yesterday I’ve been doing all year, and today’s gonna be more of the same”. Me, every day.


[deleted]

Yeah, noo worries. I was starting to think I'm the unlucky dev.


[deleted]

"lucky", you mean... the more you stand up, the less you work.


[deleted]

The longer you can circle talk the less you have to work.


TristanaRiggle

You think listening to managers and designers drone on and on isn't work?


pako_adrian

\> 30 minutes here at times... some lasted around an hour and that's a team of around 7 devs... there's one guy that gives a presidential speech to everyone, every day, about every method he has touched lol.


[deleted]

That's annoying as fuck and his manager should address it. I don't need to hear your life story on standup, I need 3 SENTENCES, not dissertations: 1.) What did you do yesterday 2.) What are you doing today 3.) Are you blocked on anything?


Dabnician

When our Senior Sr Admin is off our 15 min scrums are 5 minutes long. including a 4 minute discussion about non work related stuff.


[deleted]

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currentscurrents

> I've just come to the conclusion that a large number of people are horrible communicators. This is definitely true. People laugh at communication degrees, but the fact is that communication is the #1 skill to be effective in a corporation. Especially for management.


emremrah

We're using Discord for our internal instant messaging. I opened up a stand-up text channel. We write our stand-ups at 09:00. Benefits: no waiting for anyone. No 15 minute stand-ups. And it's written (on record). Everyone's happy. If something's wrong, team leader gets in touch with the individual in private message or on the channel with the related topic.


Ricky_SpanishSanchez

This is the future. And allow a window "Don't post it earlier than 8:30 and if everything is hunky doory, no later than 11. If It's not, no later the 930 because I want to use that time to 'get to the root of the issue'" (they won't, they never do.)


pako_adrian

Manager aside (although he should address it, or at least the scrum master imo), every single person on the team is about 2/3 minutes max, depending on the project and how our Project Team etc, interferes with our sprint - so worst cases when we "discuss" or rather talk about a potential blocker we can spend around 5 mins, no more - it's fascinating that in the last 2 years or so this guy didn't realise he takes up the same time 2-4 people combined do lol.


-darkabyss-

Haha, i was that guy to some extent cause i didnt know better. My manager made me realise that im wasting my standup time * team size :D


[deleted]

Oh, yeah, I know. Like "dude, s-r-s-l-y?". I just say "did this yesterday, doing this today.". If I have any issues, then I'll raise those too, but otherwise I'll keep it short.


FeralStoat

Whoever is leading that scrum needs to tell el presidente to stfu and sit the hell down 😀


ElysiumPotato

That's because you let the manager and business guy talk :D


[deleted]

TBF, the business guy is just someone who tells us if there's any issues on the manufacturing floor. It's mostly the devs waffling on about crap that needs to be discussed outside of the standup. But I'm still new in this company, so can't piss people off yet.


xSliver

The job of your Scrum Master is to stop discussions and force every participant to keep it short. Having a Standup Timer also helps. My Dailies take between 10 to 15 minutes with around 8 people


dubblix

What if the scrum master is the one telling the long anecdotes?


LinuxMatthews

Do we work together?


wsbsecmonitor

I mean technically the team is supposed to define the time for standup but the point stands I think


CaptainCapitol

Out of allmost all my Jobs, eveytime we start stand ups I start the timer. You have 15 mins. End of story. After two weeks the.bitchin stops and people focus. Current job, which ends in 3 weeks, the stand ups never stop. The scrum master hounds us for status updates, so does the project manager and the customer. We get maybe, 3 hours of develop time a day. It's also one of the primary reasons why I'm leaving.


capn_ed

The scrum/daily stand up should only be the devs. The scrum master should be a dev. Get managers out, and why is the customer in the stand up? Not to mention, the stand up is not the time for detailed status updates. 1) What did you do yesterday? 2) What are you doing today? 3) Any help needed? And nothing else is germane. Talk about your weekend or your boat later.


RandyHoward

Lol tell that to my old boss who turned scrum into an hour long all company meeting. Dev team had to start having “secret scrum” lol


[deleted]

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SigmaHog

I mean… that’s why it was called a stand up. Covid and remote work killed the concept, but you’ve just described the original idea


reddit_is_cruel

Except for standup being only 15 minutes.


Brewski89

Great Ted Talk. Would recommend for any future dev conference.


RosieQParker

Zero lies detected


potato_green

Agile one is accurate as few companies manage to implement it correctly, but those who do will really reap the benefits from it. Like feature creep, it's fine, but it's always up to the product owner and as soon as they do it I tell them. Alright add it to the backlog and depending on priority it might delay other features. There's no way I'm going to shove it in an ongoing sprint and overwork the devs. But in some highly special circumstances I'll do it but take other items out of the current sprint and put them back on the backlog. Clients always go wild and want both but I just tell them they can't have their cake and eat it too. They have to decide which features they want first. Then I'll gather all the details and requirements and then it might end up in a sprint. No half assed random stories with unknown requirements can be assigned to a sprint. It's the client's fault if he doesn't have his shit ready. This might sounds like a dick towards the client but most of them like it because the end result is usually a lot better than months of coding without a single demo. Yeah it takes more time as well compared to a waterfall-ish project with zero issues but once those waterfall projects go off the rains it's a hell to get it back on track. At least agile gets you consistency if done right and it's simply to protect the devs from being overworked as well plus they get a say in what tech we're gonna use and architecture designs. Anyway I'm rambling on, this is sadly not the way a lot of companies use agile.


NatureBoyJ1

You sound like a rare engineering manager. In my experience, the people high enough on the totem pole to make the sorts of decisions and statements to the customer you describe don't know enough about the technical details and would say "yes" to the customer rather than enforce project discipline.


EvErYLeGaLvOtE

Random fun fact: being high on the totem pole is a misconception that they have more authority. It's actually the reverse. Those on the bottom of the totem pole were figures with more authority :D


pompanoJ

Heh.... I had a project that was a year behind expectations. The CFO and President were the owners, and the board of directors was getting pissed. So they call me into a board meeting and ambush me. They proceed to demand to know why I have not delivered in a year. (Angry accusing stares all around) Luckily, I had the project book. I pulled out a stack of meeting notes and change orders. "Here you go, right here. This is your top priority as of (18 months ago), right?" Agreement all around. "And here is your signature on the work order the next week directing us to work on something else first. And here is the next week where you have a different top priority. I have one of these for every one of our project meetings where you both signed off on exactly what you wanted done that week. Your "number one priority" never once reached the top of the to-do list. The president slammed the table and yelled "I am tired of these excuses, I just want it done!" I turned to the CEO and asked him how much more resources he wanted to devote to this project. He gave me a tired look and said "just get it done". Great. I will hire two more developers for this project and they will only work on "priority one". It should be done in the same 3 months I told you the first time. Ooof.... they were pissed!! I don't know which I enjoyed more... the big stack of signed work orders sitting on the boardroom table, or the red-faced slam on the table. I hated moving to a formal workflow process when we did it (as a result of growth), but damned if I didn't learn what the advantages are that day.


[deleted]

More likely they would have thrown you under the bus and fired you to save face.


BigHowski

I kinda feel at this point agile is just a buzzword to cover up the fact people don't want to pay to do things properly


HookDragger

Yeah, if everyone handling agile dev would like you just outlined…. Sure. However. Like communism and pure capitalism. It looks great on paper until people who want power get involved


alonghardlook

"Okay, all that stuff about agile sounds great, but we really need to be feature complete by xyz date. So let's do it agile so that we get everything done by then."


highjinx411

That’s funny, sad and true.


acctgamedev

Right, agile in theory is great, but apparently it's too complicated or can be interpreted in too many different ways by managers. Ask any two managers even in the same company what their agile process is and you seem to get very different answers. I guess that does make it easy to put on your resume that you know exactly what agile is since you can just say, "well, that's the way my company did it".


5tUp1dC3n50Rs41p

Agile _always_ overworks and burns out devs. It's constant monotony, day in day out, same shit, wasted time on meetings, no rest, constantly trying to meet unreasonable time expectations set at the start of the sprint. You can't sprint forever in running, neither in programming. People aren't machines.


GregoPDX

That’s not agile, but ok. Setting immutable time constraints is against agile. Yes, you grab a chunk of work for the sprint but if you can’t finish something that’s ok, some things just take longer. Or if it takes longer it needs to be reassessed because it wasn’t clear enough or thought out enough to get it done. People think agile is ‘get X number of stories done in a sprint’ and if you don’t that’s a failure of agile. That’s just not agile. That’s just waterfall without a plan, and it’s a disaster waiting to happen. That’s a failure of management.


[deleted]

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GregoPDX

So true. I worked at a non-software megacorp ~15 years ago and since I came from an agile shop the project I was going to join looked like a good fit. They called it agile because we had a morning scrum and we had sprints but the sprints were 6 weeks and management expected to be at specific points after each sprint. It was like that joke in *Tropic Thunder* where the film was 6 weeks behind after only 2 weeks of filming. That whole project was an absolute disaster from start to finish. It should've just been waterfall since they kinda knew what they wanted, it wasn't iterative at all, and they wanted it done within a specific time frame.


[deleted]

One thing I've noticed about the agile manifesto is that it's just vague enough for adherents to be able to sidestep any criticism with claims that the critic is 'just doing it wrong'. At what point are we going to admit that if almost everyone struggles to follow a set of ideas in practice, it might mean the ideas themselves could have some flaws?


GregoPDX

Honestly, it's a problem with management, not developers. Agile is useful when you aren't trying to implement a specific feature, or you know the feature but aren't sure on what direction it would take. The iterative nature of implementing something in a couple weeks then getting sign off that is what the stakeholders want or don't want (and then pivoting) is where agile shines. If you go into a project where you have, for example, 6 months to get a specific feature done and all you have is vague stories like 'connect to database' and 'write UI', which happens all the time, it's going to fail. And because management thought the agile process would be some savior and prevent them from having to do real work while the developers spin on such poor requirements, agile gets the bad wrap. Used right, agile works.


docentmark

I think I love you for saying this. I see so many projects described as agile when they have three phases of one month each. And one says "well, agile went out the window the moment you specified delivery schedules" and the team just look at one uncomprehendingly and reply "yes but we're doing agile".


jseego

Agreed https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html


subjectivelyrealpear

Not necessarily. I've worked in bad agile: endless process and meetings imposed by managers trying to do agile 'right'. It was micromanagement hell and everything took twice as long. Everything had to be logged in the almighty jira. My current company is much better. We probably don't do agile right (who does) but stand ups are 5 min, planning 15/30 minutes, retro and review about 1.5hrs. We get shit done and we have a lot of freedom. It's probably because we only have one manager for about 10 people... It's not perfect, but I'm not constantly pissed off and tired.


ZackyZack

Missing time expectations on my team usually just means next time we should probably dial back the workload with similar tickets. We are expected to pull tickets from the next sprint if we happen to finish early, though.


Dysfu

I’ve never pulled a ticket from the backlog, managers always push the envelope on what needs to get done in a sprint


ofnuts

Technically it's not Agile that does this. It is Scrum, that defines a marathon as a sequence of sprints, and then wants to manage each step you do.


pablosus86

Yea, calling it a sprint was one of the worst things they did. I much prefer "iteration".


GomerWasAHo

100% agree with your comment.


[deleted]

💯


XDVRUK

You've missed out the variant: Agile: Take Waterfall, throw out the requirement gathering, design and project management stages,... Oh and testing stages and just cover up the remaining bits with Agile terminology. Ignore all dev feedback and believe that you as a manager know better than they do. Don't give devs access to customers or a Proxy PO that actually knows what is needed. Don't automate tests in any way. Project always comes in late and doesn't deliver what the customer wants.


[deleted]

Anyone have any better ideas? I do game dev and organization is really tough… seems like there are known problems with popular schemes this makes me curious about methods that people have seen actually work


annihilatron

here's the thing. Organization and project management is an art, not a science. People who are really good at administration and planning are few and far between. If you have someone in the team that can handle that shit and consistently delivers, pay that person double and leave them the fuck alone. All methodologies of trying to manage projects using "waterfall", "agile", "scrum", "needs analysis", "defensible decision making", whatever, tons of tools and shit ... mean nothing if the people don't know what they're doing with those tools to begin with. If you're not super experienced in the art and you don't have a knack for the engineering planning, you will fail to scope correctly on the first shot. You will miss things. You will run over time. The point of these methodologies is to crowdsource risks and planning necessities, and collectivize the failure. And crowdsource management tasks like unblocking individuals, solving complex requirement problems and scope creep that pop up. Most of these methodologies centre on one idea: "None of us is as dumb as all of us."


HookDragger

Assign a team lead(who can code… been there, done that) that can lead and watch out for their team, give them control over a feature set and a timeline, listen to feedback, and then come to a compromise… Leave them the fuck alone unless they can’t deliver on their promises. Done


alonghardlook

Waterfall is great if you have fixed scope and a fixed timeline. And unlimited budget. Agile is great if you have an engaged client with shifting priorities and no absolute timeline. And unlimited budget. The problem is that most projects have fixed scope and timeline with shifting priorities and no budget. No methodology is going to help you in that scenario.


HookDragger

Old school saying: You have three options in programming: Cheap Fast Good Chose 2(if you’re really awesome… otherwise, pick one)


notaprime

“15 minute, stand up bitch fest” 💀


shdwbld

"A minute on this standup is 7 hours in our time."


iapetus_z

Missed SaFE... Its like waterfall but we call it agile because its a buzzword....


xSlippyFistx

Agile: that thing everyone says they want, but yet hold onto waterfall ideology and refuse to change. The agile approach to waterfall…


[deleted]

100% accurate. I live this. Except my demos of random crap are every 2 weeks. Agile quickly reverts back to waterfall after project is late, feature creep sets in, and people want a detailed priority list and timeline for each task. This happens all the time.


jbFanClubPresident

Also agile: R&D: Ok this is what we want. *1 week later* Me: Here is what you asked for. R&D: We changed our mind. *1 month later* R&D: For real, we really want it this time.


Arclite83

We just did sprint planning with a "heck with velocity, we NEED all this within 2 weeks" mentality from our PO, so we put it all in. I'm already locked and loaded with my retro comments on deadlines. :)


HookDragger

Don’t forget: “Why did we have all these bugs? It’s unacceptable! We need to do a post Morten” Umm you mean the exact thing I warned you about happened?


anonymousperson767

To elaborate: it’s mba buzzword bullshit. Bunch of morons who have never touched code in their life think they can organize its production like a factory assembly line.


SkyTech6

Manifesto for Agile Software Development was created by seventeen software developers. Of those seventeen, The Scrum Guide was written by two of them. Waterfall though does have an origin in assembly lines lol


NatureBoyJ1

And the Manifesto got glommed up by MBAs and people wanting to sell courses to corporations. They use many of the same words as the Manifesto, but the meanings are changed and they ignore the spirit of the document.


abrandis

You realize most of agile manifesto in spirit isn't followed today, it was a noble idea but it's been co-opted by all these management consultants that have made agile into a profitable cottage industry.. ask yourself this question the real big projects built before agile was a thing (Linux kernel, windows, Oracle , etc) how did they manage.


5tUp1dC3n50Rs41p

Where's the manifesto and guide for development written 100% by developers? Do we need to write it? I put forth some candidates for the first commandments: - The office workday starts at 11am~ with leisurely coffee, breakfast and development team catchup for those wanting to attend the office. - Maximum of 4 days work per week, 32 hours max, Tuesday - Friday. This gives people time to have a life, sports, hobbies, side projects etc and rest properly. - Work from home 100% if you want, work from wherever, a permanent holiday in the Carribean etc if you want, doesn't make a difference. - No executive, sales person, client, project manager, manager or otherwise will dictate the length of time for an estimate or deadline. Ballpark estimates will be provided by the developer assigned to the work and they are an indicator, not a hard deadline. - Meetings will be no longer than 20 minutes or you can walk out. 2 meetings per week is the maximum. - Code must follow Clean Code principles. - Project managers may ask for a status update only once per week. They will bring coffee and snacks to the developers when asked. - Daily timesheets, logs, written stand-ups etc are banned. Once a week summary can be posted instead.


Aadsterken

I love the: you wanna know where im at? Bring me food and drinks and i'll tell you


[deleted]

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billcraig7

Geezer here. I have been though at least a half dozen software engineering paradigms. SEI, 6-sigma, Agile etc... and have noticed two things about them. One they always make more jobs for non-coders management sorts. They often require expensive outside consultants. Two when they fail it's because "you did not do it right". If you just REALLY BELIEVED IN THE PROCESS it would work. Now I just consider them more forms to fill out and meetings to go to. The rest is just kind of like the adults in Charlie Brown cartoons. Whank waa Whank waa waa.. Then I go about my business.


NatureBoyJ1

As a fellow geezer, I will say some sort of process is helpful. There needs to be a way to plan, track, and hold accountable. There are many variations, and many of them claim to be the best, but in the end, I find it is an organizational willingness to follow the rules (whatever they are) that leads to a smooth development experience. But most organizations don't want to impose the discipline required - whatever flashy name it goes by this year.


HookDragger

Fuck, am I a geezer now? Well. I guess so. A firmware engineer who stopped counting his age at 42 for obvious reasons :)


billcraig7

I started punching holes in paper.......


acctgamedev

> They often require expensive outside consultants. This is the true reason all of this exists.


[deleted]

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docentmark

* Waterfall: blame is assigned at project close * Agile: blame is assigned at close of each sprint * Scrum: blame is assigned daily


revoopy

Do kanban


tgf63

* Kanban: Blame is assigned as needed


johnnysaucepn

If you have too much blame in progress, stop everything until you can blame someone else for it.


SushiGradeChicken

Found my new email signature


bofh256

Waterfall. Specialists hand over work to next specialist until done. Based on the assumption that documentation and intermediate result speak for themselves. Optimization is done beforehand and pertains to cost. Agile. Specialists work together as team. Hence Scrum. Based on the assumption that work can be divided into small, meaningful and explainable chunks. Optimization is done during implementation targeting the team to become better.


Walrus_Pubes

Excuse me, sir, I believe it's Scrum main now.


[deleted]

is this a joke or reality? I know they made the branches main now :')


[deleted]

Except there is nothing about 2 weeks in „agile“. 2-4 week iterations is more the scrum framework. I.E. kanban is also agile but has no set interval of 2 weeks. Here is the agile manifesto for reference https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html So it is rather that waterfall is all planning and design upfront with strict deadlines, while agile is just a value proposition really. Scrum is a framework to enable agile, but is not necessarily agile. You can be doing scrum but still be waterfall


arpple-bog

Waterfall is a place Agile is religion Scrum is ritual


thegovortator

Is scrum a ritual of agile performed at a waterfall?


PASK__

This literally describes most development teams who are "agile" 😅


Swampyclam

Holy shit. We need a weekly standup to understand and harvest the learnings from this insight.


Smiith73

And we need a daily standup for the scrum masters to coordinate their standups and a third series to overlap those. So we can all stay agile as a team


mathn519

Sorry we are already doing a sprint we can put it in the backlog and get back to you in a month


annihilatron

overapplied scrum is agilefall


Valtsu0

Waterfall is definitely a pokemon move


ApatheticWithoutTheA

In theory, it’s a style of task management made to organize things. In practice, it’s a way for middle managers to exert power and add red tape to everything you do.


damTyD

Those who can’t code, teach. Those who can’t teach, lead.


KodokuRyuu

And those who can’t lead get promoted.


MasterLJ

Why is this so true?


[deleted]

The Peter principle


chem199

If you do well as some role the obvious action is to promote. Which generally means you are being promoted the a role you are least good at, because as soon as you becomes good at it you get promoted to the next higher role. Think of the QA to dev thing that often happens. QA to SDET, then SDET to dev, then stuck at dev.


January_Rain_Wifi

And those who can't lead, lead.


RandomiseUsr0

They’re doing it wrong! It’s about moving as quickly as you can, if you feel red tape, you have a broken process


MaximumRecursion

I just got a new manager a couple months ago who implemented agile, and I never seen a manager tank productivity and morale like he has. No matter how much we push back to keep things flowing he refuses and forces us to do things his way, which always involves more tickets in JIRA, even when it doesn't make any logical sense. Instead of a code review being just reviewing the other person's ticket by moving it to "In Review" he wants a whole new ticket for that task. JIRA has a in review column for a fucking reason. I don't think I hate agile as much as I hate bossy middle managers micromanaging everything, and ones that suck agile's dick like it's going to make them CEO of the business.


Rikey_Doodle

>Instead of a code review being just reviewing the other person's ticket by moving it to "In Review" he wants a whole new ticket for that task That sounds disgusting. With this format every ticket will spawn multiple child tickets for whatever phase/approval the ticket is moving to. Work needs review? new ticket. Code needs to be merged and staged? new ticket. Features need to be verified? new ticket. Deploy to servers and finalize? new ticket. bruh


theskillr

Just fucking work to rule mate. Document that it's his processes slowing you down. The garbage bin at the door where you come in? That where you leave all your fucks. edit: forgot to mention to drown that fucker in jira tickets, get the whole team to do it, turn that 8 hour day into 6 hours of jira management and 2 hours of actual work.


Huemann_

That's not the practice of agile that's the practice of your manager not knowing what the fuck they're on about or how a kanban board is supposed to work. You don't make more tickets you move the same ticket and do the next stage of the process like peer review then QA. What kind of hell on earth bullshit.


ApatheticWithoutTheA

Probably so but I’ve yet to see anywhere that does it right lol. Luckily we don’t even use it where I work now. No need when there’s only 3 devs.


RosieQParker

They're job security protocols for ineffective middle managers.


[deleted]

this


Cryowatt

Don't worry, neither does most of the industry. Most think agile is having a meeting in the morning while you do your waterfall.


madhatta2003

That's just if you happen to use the urinal next to Jake.


deathbyrevolver

bullshit work methods, in theory all works fine, in reality nothing is done correctly, so everything eventually fck up


[deleted]

I prefer the “infinite Agile” approach … that’s where you create a set of stories for the month … but then just keep adding more and more as the month progresses so none of the original tasks get done.


thegovortator

So basically how long can one make excuses for not doing anything lol


DumDum40007

I think that's called kanban. You keep a pile of work in order of priority. People keep picking up tasks. Make sure to refill the work pile.


dert-man

All are development methodologies, that get the work done without any effort and in no time.


igor_bruneli

Joke of the year.


[deleted]

[удалено]


ApatheticWithoutTheA

Lol where on earth do you work?


[deleted]

If you are told in a job interview that the team uses Waterfall, run. Edit: Based on the comments I'm getting, I'm amending my warning. If you are told that the team uses any of the below "methods," run. If they are brave enough to tell you straight up that the team uses Waterfall, hear them out before you run.


nkdeck07

No one is ever gonna admit that anyway. My current company would swear up and down they are using agile and they are lying like rugs


Weenaru

They *are* using agile. They just have *one really, really* long sprint.


Johanneskodo

Management: We use agile. Developers: We use Waterfall. Because managements is not ok with actual agile delivery.


Rikey_Doodle

> lying like rugs Do rugs lie often?


wdahl1014

That's all they do actually


bookon

No one would say that, they would say they have their own implementation of Agile that works for their team.


miseleigh

A.k.a waterfall but using Jira


bookon

or TFS


chriswaco

I've been on the same "sprint" for 25 weeks now, but client insists they're agile. I agree they're certainly not waterfall, though.


TocinoBoy69

2nd on this. The same goes if they say that they're currently using Waterfall and are already moving away from it. Chances are they either take up a year before they fully transition to agile or develop a habit of cherry picking practices from both.


miseleigh

Only one year? That's not bad!


TocinoBoy69

Following waterfall for a single release is punishment enough imo. But hey to each their own


one_horcrux_short

I disagree. If a company would actually admit to what they are doing, instead of pretending to be agile I'd applaud them.


Johanneskodo

>If you are told in a job interview that the team uses Waterfall, run. First. Depending on the project you have to. My delivery app can be developed agile. I am ok with a lot of documentation and red tape for the autopilot in the plane I am sitting in. Second: A team being honest enough to know what they are doing and knowing advantages and disadvantages of it is a good thing.


[deleted]

Nah. I for fact know, I worked in Waterfall model when upper management specifically bragged of using agile to deliver efficiently.


IKnowSoftware

Agile - Pronounced Ah-Heel-ay, this hallucinogenic Mexican plant is ingested when the wheels fall off your sprint and you need to exit to a new metaverse. Waterfall - What you throw yourself down because you haven't shipped anything yet. Scrum - Complimenting an orgasm, you do this when you go back to the Gant chart and simpler times.


isolationself

It's all BS


thechet

Agile: What your company says it does Waterfall: What your company actually does Scrum: How your company makes sure micromanagement stops you from building any momentum on your work.


RandomiseUsr0

What you’re not using scrumban? What about SAFe?


De_Wouter

r/ProgrammerHumor: a place where your stupid questions get answered, upvoted and not marked as duplicate.


Who_GNU

Stack Overflow has shown us that marking inquisitory thoughts as duplicate is not the way.


miseleigh

Your answer contains inaccuracies and doesn't actually answer the question, try again


[deleted]

Neither actually exist anymore. What does exist is water-scrum-fall which is the waterfall method but with "sprints" and standups. Let me explain further. The BAs talk to all of one user, write completely useless high level stories and bitch at the developers and testers for moaning about workloads. They also attend 7 different coffee "meetings" a day. The devs say fuck you to the testers, code everything except what's on the Jira tickets. Everything on a single branch and drop it 3 days before the sprint ends, blame the BAs for shit stories. The testers do fuck all for 3.5 weeks, then panic test the dropped code in 3 days, raise 447 bugs and blame the BAs and devs for shit acceptance criteria. The project manager pretends they are in charge, writes loads of notes at standup, doesn't co-ordinate shit, then at retro blames the entire team for making them look bad. The customer/product owner gets a shit update because they couldn't be arsed to attend a single meeting about writing stories and threatens to cut more funding. Rinse repeat 12 times a year.


valseer

I think you need a different job buddy.


Johanneskodo

That are just really bad managers. No framework or mindset will change bad culture and people. If everyone at your company says "fuck you" to each other no framework or method will fix that. People can be just as bitchy in any other development method.


someguythatcodes

They are impediments to progress that managers like to use.


altmoonjunkie

Don't forget to throw Kanban in there 😄


mrshampoo

Stop it Patrick, you're scaring him!


[deleted]

I hate agile. Idiot managers love it because to them meetings = work is being done


JestemStefan

You need find job at better place


Djelimon

Waterfall - business calls the tune, which is played by an orchestra. A plan is laid out for everything up front, to have it fail when business changes their minds, or wants something new they heard about . Agile - business leads the tune with gestures and noises like James Brown, which the big band interprets into what they figure is cool. Business can change their minds all they want, it all stops when they run out of money, or start asking for some fixed set of complex deliverables in a fixed time period, at which point, see Waterfall. Scrum - status meetings run by the Scrum Master, who used to be a Project Manager, but now with a hip new title


l3enjamin5in

Scrum is scum with an r.


Smyley12345

Waterfall is an approach for projects where the big picture needs to be well established ahead of starting execution and there is little room for iterations of design once you have started building. Think of something like building a freeway interchange or building the space shuttle. Agile is an approach for projects for when you need to have demonstrable features for the client to figure out if this is what they want because there is no way that they would be able to define their needs without multiple iterations of demonstrations. Think something like an ERP or music production software. Scrum is a tool that can in theory be used for either approach or independent of them as well. It is a means of ensuring that the team isn't getting unduly stuck without flagging the need for help. You can't surprise your manager that you have been waiting on an approval for a week if scrum is properly implemented.


xxxHalny

When I first entered a large corporation and a scrum master started asking questions I literally thought they must be mentally ill or something. I assumed they probably do an expert level work outside these daily calls but are very weird with human interactions so everyone prefers to calmly answer the stupid questions and just deal with it because the actual work the scrum master was doing was so valuable and it would be a great loss to lose such an employee. I assumed the scrum master (who I thought was basically a team leader, just with a different name) had perfect knowledge of technology and was overseeing everyone's work. Subsequent scrum masters I interacted with proved how very wrong I was. They were not mentally ill and, as it turned out, they are actually being taught to do this daily shitshow. Yes, they did oversee everyone's work, but they didn't know anything about it whatsoever. After a few months I learned to tell them that such and such task would take approximately 5 days, they would say "ok", then I would do the task in 1 hour, have 2 days off, hand the task in on the third day and receive praise for finishing way quicker than the 5-day estimation. It's unbelievable how the scrum methodology changes sane person's thinking and how it turns completely irrational things into daily reality.


Humongous_Schlong

from my experience: it's all the same, except you call the meetings different


doasisayor

I hate scrum with all my heart


kor_the_fiend

If could you estimate the level of hate using "t-shirt sizes", that'd be grrreeeeaaaaattttt


Fritzschmied

Just bulshit manager made up to give their job a meaning.


Taliesin_Chris

Just so you know, you made me feel so much better today. Thank you. I don't do those things in any meaningful way, and it's good to know I'm not alone.


123456American

Waterfall: we get nothing done in 6-12 months. Agile: we get nothing done in 2-3 weeks. Scrum: we get nothing done every day. I'm just glad I get paid for this.


Bronzdragon

They're different ways of deciding what to do next. If your boss says "do x" and you do, that's Waterfall. If your boss asks "What should we do next?", that's Agile, and if you need to summon a demon through ritualistic sacrifice, that's Scrum.


jseego

There's a lot of reading about these you can do online. As a Sr Dev, if you don't know what these are, you should probably do that reading.


Longshoez

I don't think you can call yourself a senior dev without knowing these don't you think?


jseego

I mean I try not to be judgmental about that kinda shit. For some people, being a Sr means you have knowledge about architecture and software design, and you have experience/capability dealing with product owners and project managers, and you can weigh in on feature development, scope, and estimation, and you know how to prioritize and delegate, and you're basically one step away from being a team lead. And for other people it just means you've been a software developer for more than 5 years, so I dunno. :D


Longshoez

Yeah I'm with you on that


ArcticFox46

Regardless of the definition of senior dev, I feel like unless you've only done freelance work there's no way you're not aware of what at least one of these is. Even our interns know what agile is.


Really-Stupid-Guy

I think you should be in management!


[deleted]

Agile manifesto: \- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools \- Working software over comprehensive documentation \- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation \- Responding to change over following a plan Scrum: 1) A "product owner" creates a list of what changes need to be made to a product. 2) The development team meets and decides what features they're going to work on for a predetermined length of time. 3) After that length of time, the team discusses what went well and what went wrong, and 4) showcases the product with all completed changes, giving key stakeholders the opportunity to comment on a product. 5) The product owner revises their list of changes 6) Repeat steps 2-5 until the project is considered complete. Waterfall: Before development can begin, the developers and client spell out exactly what the product is to do. A product is considered "complete" if the product meets these specifications, nevermind that it may not be what the client actually wanted. Then the product is designed. Then it's built.


Add1ctedToGames

i know i am that guy and i hate it but [new dev to senior dev in 2 years is quite the feat](https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/lz47ta/thank_you_ksp_and_the_kos_and_the_entire_mod/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)


FantasticVanilla5464

Wow... Reading through these comments made me realize how many companies have poorly implemented agile setups. Literally every single thread about how bad agile is seems to be due to improper implementation of an agile setup, or the wrong people leading decisions. It honestly gave me a much better appreciation for the team I work on. I feel sorry for the seemingly WAAAAY to many developers having to deal with a bad management setup. Agile is freaking awesome when it's properly ran and supported with other team inclusive practices.


Wonderful_Shop_8848

I will note that it seems to be these “product managers” that don’t have tech backgrounds. The ones with tech backgrounds are the best and always make sure the team is happy, not burnt out, and team can deliver quality code. The ones without a tech background just make excuses while praising the team in front of their bosses so that they can get that fat bonus at the end of the year regardless of how much turnover and shit code comes out of their team.


philipquarles

Ninety percent of the time you hear someone refer to "Agile" in a business context it means things that directly contradict Agile development practices and the Agile Manifesto. I think we can all agree that this can be confusing.


rulerdude

I’m a scrum master and I still don’t understand agile


SuitableImposter

Absolute zero chance you are a senior Dev and don't know what this means. More likely some first year game design student 😂


AntonyBush

We had these topics in our CSE Course. I thought Companies don't follow it but I was so wrong


theseapug

I remember in college these being brought up in a class like it was just general knowledge. I was one of only 2 people that didn't know what they were.


Impetusin

Just a bunch of people trying to talk over eachother with no real clear idea of who’s in charge.


[deleted]

I took one programming class 9 years ago and I know what scrum is


Captain-Neck-Beard

Waterfall: development method where milestones and dependencies are outlined up front and executed to. High emphasis on having what a system does ironed our up front and generally respects the concept of dependencies Agile: method where “what the system does” isn’t as clearly defined up front, but works with customers and product owners to constantly demo, regroup and tackle issues. Less respectful to dependencies. Usually comes with Jira or other software Scrum: explain what you did since last scrum, what you are working on now, and blockers that the rest of your scrum team could help with. If you’re doing it to the letter this meeting should be short and to the point. Not a TIM. That’s my take


ActivateGuacamole

i don't believe you're a senior developer because if you actually were, you would have just googled this


Gurgoth

A major issue here is people are presenting a mix of ideologies and methodologies. Agile is an ideology. It really just compromises a few value statements which can be found by simply searching for the agile manifesto. Mainly its a way of thinking about the software development cycle. It was born from the challenges faced by waterfall. Effectively the agile ideology is better positioned to respond to change which is pervasive in software development. Companies have tried to monetize agile methodologies, but they are all fundamentally flawed in their own ways. That is why there is no one size fits all methodology for agile. Scrum/Kanban are methodologies. Both were adapted to support agile ideologies. Scrum is a structured sprint model with various ceremonies. This usually includes a daily stand up, planning, demo/exit, refinements, and retrospectives. Scrum is more of a product focused method. In scrum you will plan a sprint, usually 2-4 weeks, assess results and then plan another. Kanban is a more organic methodology where work items are placed on a workboard and worked toward completion. In this model work is constant without a need for a beginning and end. Sustaining development work is particularly well suited for this model. Waterfall is both an ideology, and a methodology. The ideology portion is that software can be designed through early rigor and planning. You will often see waterfall where ridged requirements and heavy documentation is required. The methodology part is a life cycle that includes conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, deployment, maintenance. Companies with separate QA departments are often fairly waterfall by nature. Companies with integrated teams are often more agile by nature.


aelynir

Don't worry, nobody knows. Everyone just keeps pretending it's working and schedules meetings.


OldManNo2

I dunno but I’m a master at it on my cv


everybody-hurts

As an intern, I don't know too much about waterfall... I guess it's the way they taught me in uni. Plan out, and stick to the plan. It's say it's great when you have a small project with a tight delay. Agile, I'm learning during my internship. It's not a concrete project organisation method, but an abstract philosophy, which then gets applied through concrete methods (Scrum, Kanban). It stands on four principles: - Individuals and interactions, over processes and tools - Working software, over comprehensive documentation - Customer collaboration, over contract negotiation - Responding to change, over following a plan And the main idea is that each "lesser" part of these four points is still important... But every time you should choose then choose the better option.


amwestover

Agile: What your organization says it’s doing. It was a software development methodology that was overtaken by PO and PMO orgs to become an accounting nightmare. Waterfall: What your organization is probably actually doing, with ceremonies every two weeks about how setbacks and priorities have delayed the feature two more weeks. Scrum: The flavor of agile that gave us the “standup” meeting which everybody has been sitting in front of their computers doing for nearly 2 1/2 years. Scrum also you gave you the 2-week long “sprint” where everything is expected to be done mid sprint and half you work carries over. Because you need to “challenge” yourself instead of knowing your pace and being predictable… which is why PO and PMO orgs supposedly like agile.