- Start: Waterfall is the mainstream methodology
- The mainstream methodology shows some limitations
- Somebody proposes a new, or lesser-known, or almost forgotten methodology and shows how it addresses the limitations at step 2 (and how it’s better than Waterfall, of course)
- After a long argument, heavily based on personal opinions, and often light on facts, the methodology at step 3 becomes the mainstream one
- Go to step 2
Category: Agile
Related to Agile Development
Shooting Yourself in the Foot With Agility
Recently I’ve started tidying up my folders and websites and I’ve found and read again an article I wrote almost seven years ago:“How to Shoot Yourself in the Foot. In an Agile Way”. Unfortunately, I think it is still actual and relevant–I keep coming across teams that make the same mistakes described in the article, then fail in their effort, blame the methodology and then try a different one hoping for different results (there is a very good blog post from Allan Kelly “Scrum doesn’t work for us; should we try Kanban?” describing one instance of this approach).
If you find yourself in a situation in which Agile is not working for you, I suggest to stop and analyse carefully what is going on, then try to address the underlying issues, before deciding to give up or to try a methodology different from the one you are using. You might be much better off.