RE: Modern Waterfall

This happens to be one of my hot buttons recently. I’ll see if I can make my position clearer.

I have also been a manager and worked with many managers. With the exception of existential crisis – cases where the company/division/job might go away if the status quo persists – I’ve known very few who were willing to do things differently to get more accomplished. And by “different”, I mean things like:


  *   My day-to-day job would change.
  *   I would need to justify my different way of working with my manager.
  *   I would need to learn to use something different than “command and control”

I sympathize with and commend those who have tried/are trying to do these sorts of things, because in most organizations a very frustrating exercise, and it can be a risky from a career perspective.

My experience is that there are usually obvious things that the team can do that will get them something like a 2x improvement in productivity. There are obvious things that the team knows are slowing them down. But they don’t get done.  In the old days, we used to say that nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. In most organizations, nobody ever got fired for using the same development/management approach that has been used for the past decade.

As for motivation of dev teams, I once had a dev team working on a part of an unexciting internal product that the other teams in the company were forced to use and actively disliked (and for good reason). And despite the uncoolness and negative feedback, we ended up with a team that was very tight and very productive. Part of that was having a bit of air cover from my manager, but at least some of it was my willingness to view my job as one of facilitating team progress rather than directing it.

I think the problem wrt motivation is a lack of understanding of what really motivates people; I think Daniel Pink has it right<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc>, though I like to add “community” to his list. That, and the common “what do I do as a manager of an agile team?” question.

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 8:54 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [SCRUMDEVELOPMENT] Modern Waterfall [1 Attachment]


[Attachment(s) from Steve Ropa included below]
I’m always a little saddened when I see someone question the motivations of a separate group.  I’ve been a manager, and I’ve worked with many managers.  I would say that far more of them were ultimately interested in the success of the company than their own careers.  I would also say that in the management discussion groups I’ve seen, they all seem to feel that devs aren’t motivated by the success of the company, but by their desire to do cool stuff.

If the original intent for Agile was, among other things, to heal the rift between business and development, I’d say we failed.  Mostly because both “sides” are waiting for the other to change.

I’m not a fan of SAFe, and for the reason you mention.  It makes it too easy to keep doing what we’ve always been doing and convince yourself that this time it will work.  I’m just not comfortable saying its because “management” doesn’t’ care if things get better.

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From: Eric Gunnerson [email protected] [SCRUMDEVELOPMENT]<mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 9:37 AM
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: RE: [SCRUMDEVELOPMENT] Modern Waterfall


SAFe is very appealing to management because it fits into their view of how the world should work (hierarchical, command and control) and it allows them to claim that they are now “agile” (I mean, it says *AGILE* right there in the name) without having to change what they do.

That’s a win-win.

A lot of things that used to confuse me became much clearer when I realized that managers – and I’m painting with an overly broad brush here – are primarily motivated by the success of their management careers, not by the success of the company. I used to think that management was out of touch and did not understand the issues with the current ways of doing things. Finally – I’m a slow learner – I realized that the reason things were the way they were is that for management, the issues that I was seeing weren’t bugs, they were features.



From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2017 8:16 PM
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [SCRUMDEVELOPMENT] Modern Waterfall


>Yeah well... when I first heard the term, I actually said, "like SAFe?" Nobody laughed. I thought I was funny, but you gotta know your audience.


well done! for saying it. Everyone wants to be SAFely agile ; and apparently so many companies are. The number of people who think SAFe is an improvement on 'agile' is mind-numbing. Nobody laughed -->were there a lot of 'senior' executives in the room?
I think we are in an over-hyped industry, with most terms having long lost their meanings, so "modern waterfall" is another desperate new term. ( Can there be something called 'over-hyped'? what is the meaning of hyperbole, again?)


> But the term is just a little unsettling, and now I have David Bowie stuck in my head.

Sorry, but I didn't quite catch the reference. I'd no idea poor Bowie bothered about s/w dev.

cheers
Srinivas
Chillara Srinivas is a Scrum Coach, Scrum Trainer, XP, TDD, Test Driven Development, Scrum Training, consultant and trainer, Scrum implementation, Project Management Proficiency, PMP, Pune, India<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scrumcoach.co.in%2F&data=02%7C01%7CEric.Gunnerson%40microsoft.com%7Cff21ab24a7604ca5c73708d4f01e9796%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C636397461567849888&sdata=QViLF3nv%2Fr%2FVniUuZ8%2BLbdZeGRkWjnVH2%2F9yMhoBReI%3D&reserved=0>
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Chillara Srinivas is a Scrum Coach, Scrum Trainer, XP, TDD, Test Driven Dev...
Chillara Srinivas Srinidhi is a Scrum Coach, Scrum Trainer for Scrum, XP, TDD (Test Driven Development), consult...