alt Hacker NewsThis is the problem with 'Agile', and why people refer to it as "Capital-A Agile".
As always, the problem isn't the process, the problem is the people. There's whole industries out there set up to sell A Process, so they come in and try to force something like this on you. They want to stay in business, so they need to make sure they have something to sell.
That's the dysfunction - a company that is forcing this laborious process on you, rather than giving teams the autonomy to figure out how they best work.
Agile works best as a toolbox of practices you can adopt, mix, and match to solve whatever problems you have. Do you need to work to a fixed schedule, or provide delivery estimates? You should probably have a way to regularly estimate your work. Are you struggling to actually ship and do things? Maybe it would be useful to plan things on a smaller, more frequent cadence.
> As always, the problem isn't the process, the problem is the people. There's whole industries out there set up to sell A Process, so they come in and try to force something like this on you.
I would go as far as to claim the problem is middle management types, who feel pressured to adopt buzzwords and want to micromanage things to cultivate an image of control and progress to justify their role.
It's the same type that brags about scrum but don't even bother to show in standup meetings.