How’s everyone liking agile development?

DiadesSuk

Well-Known Member
Its life, adjust. We were stuck doing waterfall for years and following the CBAP processes until I wanted to hang myself in the break room. Then Factory model came about and that was a pure :censored2:show if I've ever saw one. One thing I cant stand is a president that thinks he can be the next Steve Jobs by simply making up a process, giving it a silly title and forcing it down the throats of those under him when the only viable proof he has that it remotely works is by managing 30 college developers all under the age of 21. It failed horribly and continues to put our efforts in danger long after he was gone. But it costs so much money to implement that the powers that be are afraid to spend anymore time and money to push us either back to waterfall (which we never truly left) or push us into full blown agile (that UPS as a whole isn't staffed to even do)...

After Corp UPS allowed the BA community that the overall development effort was designed around and invested significantly in was dismantled over night by either forcing the long term professional BA's into other positions or forcing them to retire. Now the only ones that exist are again, 20 year old college grads that have zero knowledge about project management or business analysis.. But they're cheap and they simply document stuff for developers..

UPS claims "We're not a IT company, we're a logistic company", but without us this machine wouldn't turn and they certainly wouldn't be a competitor in today's market.. A company with enough liquid capital can move :censored2: from one fsl to another and take stuff to addresses, but today's work force comprised of a significant amount of young employees that cant write in cursive, count money, do simple math or even read a paper map..

I dont see a huge turnover coming, I see these college grads applying out of their roles as fast as they can to get away from something that they cant successfully do with the resources we're given. Agile requires a very well built team comprised of expensive experienced developers and process driven minds. UPS fired those people or forced them to retire while replacing them with mostly idiots that have zero experience in dev work or processes to accomplish said projects. When Agile got brought up, you could see every email signature across the board flipping to "Scrum Master" literally overnight because these people think they know how to be something they arent..
 

MrWonderful

Well-Known Member
Lol, it took some of us to get to sr. Developer level lifetime; but, the new college kids are becoming leads and scrum masters in 2/3 years. They got rid of BAs and expect the sr. Developers (with years of experience) to play all of the roles BA, QA, and Development.
 

Benjamin Henry

New Member
Agile development is a useful approach for a team. It allows the team members to work collaboratively on the project, without being required to report to a stricter development hierarchy. Agile development also allows the team members to work together more effectively and efficiently, making it easier to complete work on time. There’s very little documentation required when working on an agile project, which makes the team more efficient and more likely to be able to complete their project in a timely manner.
 

MrWonderful

Well-Known Member
Agile development is a useful approach for a team. It allows the team members to work collaboratively on the project, without being required to report to a stricter development hierarchy. Agile development also allows the team members to work together more effectively and efficiently, making it easier to complete work on time. There’s very little documentation required when working on an agile project, which makes the team more efficient and more likely to be able to complete their project in a timely manner.
. Someone has to write requirements. They’re called user stories. Documentation is there. Agile is just one way to get things done faster, but it takes toll on the servants. Remember, software engineering is brain work. Constant sprinting is exhausting and stressful.
 

DiadesSuk

Well-Known Member
. Someone has to write requirements. They’re called user stories. Documentation is there. Agile is just one way to get things done faster, but it takes toll on the servants. Remember, software engineering is brain work. Constant sprinting is exhausting and stressful.
UPS wasn't ready for Agile. It built the entire BA community (that it dismantled in 6 months) on waterfall methodology. The course of training and certifications was enough to make people doubt becoming an analyst. Now any random college drop out can do analysis at UPS and the quality of the work speaks volumes now. The era of strong dev work and documentation is long gone and the result is all dev work being pushed offshore. I finally got out. Its a whole new world out here with great pay and being able to actually do my job versus being a scrum master/BA/PM/Babysitter. PS: It takes forever for UPS to give you everything you are supposed to get retirement wise after leaving lol. The brown ship of Dev is slowly sinking. Get off it while theres still life rafts.
 

ifreak

Active Member
UPS fired those people or forced them to retire while replacing them with mostly idiots that have zero experience in dev work or processes to accomplish said projects.
I agree with most of what you said but you have to remember, UPS uses off the shelf nothing. Some of he younger guys I have encountered are actually really talented but they end up leaving either for (way) more money, or a better work situation most of the time both. If I am a decent young developer, why would I want to stay for less money and longer hours, when I can get a WFH job that pays significantly more money with less hours and a paid lunch? The ones who end up staying, the ones who can’t leave because they are “least best practicing“ developers.
 

ifreak

Active Member
How do these methods translate to what we see in operations?
In theory, Agile is designed to implement smaller more incremental changes to software over time. This results in several benefits such as smaller incremental releases rather than huge changes, ability to make changes easier as the delivery window is usually two or three weeks, and it makes a better use of everyone’s time. However UPS upper management is very reluctant to let go of the old way and either demands more work than can be possibly delivered in the two to three week timeframe or interjecting in the middle of the development process with new priorities they want delivered immediately which throws a wrench in the works. In addition, software developers are supposed to be using the majority of their time writing and testing code rather than spending half their day in meetings.

So in English for the operations guys, imagine loading a trailer that has to go out after the sort and after having the trailer half loaded, you get pulled off to go work on another trailer half way across the building and on the way to that trailer you get pulled into 4 hours of meetings after which your sup who was in the meetings with you wants to know why neither trailer is finished.
 

MrWonderful

Well-Known Member
In theory, Agile is designed to implement smaller more incremental changes to software over time. This results in several benefits such as smaller incremental releases rather than huge changes, ability to make changes easier as the delivery window is usually two or three weeks, and it makes a better use of everyone’s time. However UPS upper management is very reluctant to let go of the old way and either demands more work than can be possibly delivered in the two to three week timeframe or interjecting in the middle of the development process with new priorities they want delivered immediately which throws a wrench in the works. In addition, software developers are supposed to be using the majority of their time writing and testing code rather than spending half their day in meetings.

So in English for the operations guys, imagine loading a trailer that has to go out after the sort and after having the trailer half loaded, you get pulled off to go work on another trailer half way across the building and on the way to that trailer you get pulled into 4 hours of meetings after which your sup who was in the meetings with you wants to know why neither trailer is finished.
They got no idea
To busy blowing smoke up each other’s ass about how hard they have it over on cubicle island
. Great explanation and analogy!
 

eats packages

Deranged lunatic
Diad 6 came from Honeywell, we really do not have a choice on the hardware, albeit the android development software is a huge improvement.

How i see it is there are too many hands in the cookie jar. The code for this thing is probably in the shadow realm, obfuscated in every way imaginable. Thing needs a smaller team with longer time and much, much, much more autonomy.

I imagine having such a simple feature as a touchscreen lock, or even an automatic buttdial/raindrop detector being thrown out because it would violate a core design principle.

I think I caught a hint of sarcasm from the diad implementation team when they got here... the device (from a software perspective) is difficult to use with one hand... because it's supposed to be used with two hands!! WDFD!!
 
Top