This part of the essay admits that everyone tends to have their own interpretation of what Scrum means, and success actually comes down to whether you have the correct interpretation:
"Creating your own version of Scrum is a rite of passage for engineering managers. Both cases usually result in catastrophic failure, followed by tears and despair."
I've seen a variety of Agile approaches work well for some project managers but fail miserably with other project managers, which leaves thinking that it comes down to the person in charge -- if something only works when a certain person does it, maybe the observed effect comes from that particular person, and not the formal methodology that was nominally adopted for the project?
I've spent many years doing high level consulting, with multiple startups, which has been a great education for me because I've had a chance to observe a large number of different development methodologies. And while I've seen success with many of these methodologies, I've also seen failures, and the difference always seems to come down to who is charge, which makes me think the success or failure really depends on the leader and not the development methodology.
To put that differently, I have not seen any methodology that reliably leads to success, but I have seen certain project managers who reliably deliver success, and I suspect they could switch to different development methodologies and still deliver success. Therefore the development methodology doesn't seem to matter much.
I've only seen one rule that has consistently been true, and which grants a certain flexibility and agility to the development process:
"Small meetings are more productive than large meetings, and one-on-one meetings are the most productive of all."
I wrote about this here:
"Truly Agile development revolves around one-on-one meetings, not daily standups"
"Creating your own version of Scrum is a rite of passage for engineering managers. Both cases usually result in catastrophic failure, followed by tears and despair."
I've seen a variety of Agile approaches work well for some project managers but fail miserably with other project managers, which leaves thinking that it comes down to the person in charge -- if something only works when a certain person does it, maybe the observed effect comes from that particular person, and not the formal methodology that was nominally adopted for the project?
I've spent many years doing high level consulting, with multiple startups, which has been a great education for me because I've had a chance to observe a large number of different development methodologies. And while I've seen success with many of these methodologies, I've also seen failures, and the difference always seems to come down to who is charge, which makes me think the success or failure really depends on the leader and not the development methodology.
To put that differently, I have not seen any methodology that reliably leads to success, but I have seen certain project managers who reliably deliver success, and I suspect they could switch to different development methodologies and still deliver success. Therefore the development methodology doesn't seem to matter much.
I've only seen one rule that has consistently been true, and which grants a certain flexibility and agility to the development process:
"Small meetings are more productive than large meetings, and one-on-one meetings are the most productive of all."
I wrote about this here:
"Truly Agile development revolves around one-on-one meetings, not daily standups"
http://www.smashcompany.com/business/truly-agile-development...