How to Fudgile
Everyone knows what Agile is, how it should be used and why we use it, so why do we all do it so badly! The basics are just that, basic. We use Story Points because estimating in time cannot be used effectively without pre-allocating work yet people still insist that we have to use time to estimate. We then complain that the work wasn’t completed in the time estimated, guess what, it was never going to be because we’re Agile, we brought the Story into the Sprint with unknowns that do not allow 100% accurate estimates!
Another thing that leaders don’t seem to get, and this usually is reserved for the large corporations who have just swallowed some project buzzword bingo rubbish (at the same point that they start trying to Burndown bugs coming into a Sprint so they have something to measure — think about it! Burndowns don’t work like that) is when they start getting confused with a team using Agile and a team being agile. I really don’t think they appreciate there is a difference. They talk about the company’s agility like the Daily Stand Up is a yoga session. These are the same leaders who have bought their department a foosball table that is quickly collecting dust and want to know how long it will take to deliver the entire Backlog without realising that half the features in it are complete garbage and were written by the 17 different Product Owners (and Doris the tea lady) that at some point were running the show only to realise that they were glorified PAs organising their manager’s diary!
All this pales in comparison to the stupidity that is the “Test Sprint”. We all know it, it’s the Sprint after the Dev Sprint where we test everything that was in the previous, wait, no sorry that’s something else… yes it is, it’s Waterfall idiot. Yes, that’s right. If you are not testing in the same Sprint you are developing then you are not doing Agile. I don’t care what your excuse is, lack of automated testing, you don’t want developers sitting around at the end of Sprints doing nothing, or just complete ignorance to Agile, this is not Agile, it is Waterfall, however you dress it up. You’re just calling your project phases Sprints.
Other spectacular achievements in the I’m doing Agile, honest I am include; We’ve not finished the work in the Sprint so we’ll keep it open until we do. Compounded by the, equally stupid or worse, lets open another Sprint with the next set of work at the same time so we don’t lose momentum! I mean come on, whose arse have you pulled this second Sprint’s team from. Oh, what’s that, the same team is doing both, genius, this must be that new steroid Agile we’re all talking about! You couldn’t finish one Sprint, what makes you think having two open is going to help in any way! This is also connected to the, we’re not ready to release yet so we’ll keep the Sprint open another week. Why? I mean really, why? In what world do you need to align your release and your Sprint? Have you not heard of Continuous Integration. That is a different type of CI, Continuous Ineptitude I believe. This is also known as phased-gate release AKA WATERFALL.
Next you’ll be telling me that your team is so good that you don’t need Retros. Oh wait, what was that, you don’t have them because they are a waste of time and the team doesn’t need them. Brilliant, so this list of issues and gripes the team has, when and how were you planning on dealing with these? Probably after the testing Sprint while you have lunch on the foosball table, right after your Daily Yog-Up!
