Agile: dancing with a tambourine or science
Many experienced developers and managers have tried Agile, and they did not like it. Many directors, managers, and specialists did not even try, for they consider Agile to be a religion that helps, if you believe in it, or, in general, only create the impression of efficiency among "believers."
You can understand the latter, because most of the articles and agile evangelists say something like this: “Do as the methodology says, and your project will go to heaven. If you break at least one of the practices, Agile will punish you. ”
But I would compare modern Agile in Russia with art rather than with religion, for it has its use, but not everyone succeeds. And such a situation, when everyone reads the same books and articles and goes to the same conferences, but some succeed, and some don’t, it is just typical of art.
')
Suffice it to recall how we are taught to draw and take derivatives. Remember the first lesson about derivatives. At first, we were first chewed on the physical meaning of the first derivative, that this is the rate of change of the ordinate depending on the abscissa. Then we were told how to differentiate different functions, take the derivatives of the sum, the product, etc. In the end, if a person’s brain functions a little, then he will definitely learn to take derivatives. As our teacher Matan said: “You can even teach a monkey to differentiate.”
And how were we taught to mix colors? The art teacher said, "Mix the blue paint and the yellow, it will turn green." How?! Why?! It does not need to know, you just need to remember. And then, in general, then someone managed to draw, but someone did not really.
The same is now with Agile in Russia, yes, in general, and in the whole world. Many articles, books and speeches, telling how to do correctly, many good examples of application. But there are also many unsuccessful examples or not entirely successful ones. Taking into account the fact that usually intelligent people work in our industry, it’s not that everyone understands what is written in these articles, but the articles and books are mostly non-scientific, but journalistic. No formulas, graphs, tables, calculations. Therefore, it turns out that someone masters the art, and someone does not. The third group of people, realizing the unscientific nature of all these sources, do not even try the methodology, because they do not see evidence that it works.
BUT! Not so bad. There are already quite a few experts, and even in Russia, who are trying to scientifically approach Agile. They find justifications for practitioners, using the available scientific theories, making experiments, making measurements, building graphs, and even calculating indicators using the formulas :) Today I will give references to those I know.
Max studies and promotes the use of the theory of quality management, the theory of production management and the mat. statistics in Agile.
Boris thoroughly studies all practices and always looks at the root of the problems, only then offers solutions, unlike some Agile fanatics who “shout out” the first available agile medicine at least a little to the context of the problem. He also like Max loves mate. statistics and management theory.
Tim is more of a practice than a theorist. Those. he approaches science empirically: he tries practices, finds pitfalls, adapts and improves, and then documents. An experiment for science is no less valuable than a theory, because I’m giving a slidecast for persecution and a link to a blog.
PS: In general, there are still a lot of links to interesting and useful articles, castes and people. But since I said purely for science, it means for science :)
PPS: I would be glad if you link to more similar sources with a scientific approach to Agile (available in English)
You can understand the latter, because most of the articles and agile evangelists say something like this: “Do as the methodology says, and your project will go to heaven. If you break at least one of the practices, Agile will punish you. ”
But I would compare modern Agile in Russia with art rather than with religion, for it has its use, but not everyone succeeds. And such a situation, when everyone reads the same books and articles and goes to the same conferences, but some succeed, and some don’t, it is just typical of art.
')
Suffice it to recall how we are taught to draw and take derivatives. Remember the first lesson about derivatives. At first, we were first chewed on the physical meaning of the first derivative, that this is the rate of change of the ordinate depending on the abscissa. Then we were told how to differentiate different functions, take the derivatives of the sum, the product, etc. In the end, if a person’s brain functions a little, then he will definitely learn to take derivatives. As our teacher Matan said: “You can even teach a monkey to differentiate.”
And how were we taught to mix colors? The art teacher said, "Mix the blue paint and the yellow, it will turn green." How?! Why?! It does not need to know, you just need to remember. And then, in general, then someone managed to draw, but someone did not really.
The same is now with Agile in Russia, yes, in general, and in the whole world. Many articles, books and speeches, telling how to do correctly, many good examples of application. But there are also many unsuccessful examples or not entirely successful ones. Taking into account the fact that usually intelligent people work in our industry, it’s not that everyone understands what is written in these articles, but the articles and books are mostly non-scientific, but journalistic. No formulas, graphs, tables, calculations. Therefore, it turns out that someone masters the art, and someone does not. The third group of people, realizing the unscientific nature of all these sources, do not even try the methodology, because they do not see evidence that it works.
BUT! Not so bad. There are already quite a few experts, and even in Russia, who are trying to scientifically approach Agile. They find justifications for practitioners, using the available scientific theories, making experiments, making measurements, building graphs, and even calculating indicators using the formulas :) Today I will give references to those I know.
Maxim Dorofeev
Max studies and promotes the use of the theory of quality management, the theory of production management and the mat. statistics in Agile.
- Slidecast Statistics & People Snowflakes
- Slidecast Ugly Theme # 1 Fixed Price
- Slidecast The Story of One Board (Part 2)
- Slidecast Scale of Uncertainty
- Slidecast Moving target and trembling hands
- All slideshows
- LiveJournal blog
Boris Volfson
Boris thoroughly studies all practices and always looks at the root of the problems, only then offers solutions, unlike some Agile fanatics who “shout out” the first available agile medicine at least a little to the context of the problem. He also like Max loves mate. statistics and management theory.
- Excellent Book Flexible Development Methodologies
- Slidecast Agile Death March Projects: Ninja Way
- Performance video Flexible theory of constraints
- All slideshows
- LiveJournal blog
- Blog on Habré
Timofey Evgrashin
Tim is more of a practice than a theorist. Those. he approaches science empirically: he tries practices, finds pitfalls, adapts and improves, and then documents. An experiment for science is no less valuable than a theory, because I’m giving a slidecast for persecution and a link to a blog.
What else is useful
- Video of Andrei Bibichev's speech Poisson burning deadlines
- Video performance Andrei Solntseva Church of St. Ajile .
Andrei tells how he tried to find science in the midst of religion and nevertheless found it :) - Article Evgeny Nedelko Statistical analysis of project estimates
- Article Estimation of the complexity of tasks
PS: In general, there are still a lot of links to interesting and useful articles, castes and people. But since I said purely for science, it means for science :)
PPS: I would be glad if you link to more similar sources with a scientific approach to Agile (available in English)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/148238/
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