Feel free to change Scrum!
26-08-2009Full RSS Feed
30-08-2009I caught up with a friend, developer and fellow Agile Evangelist over coffee a few days ago. As it happened, he is currently obliged to work on a waterfall project — working for a service company, you don’t always get to choose. So I asked him, what’s it like to go back to the waterfall?
His answer: “Right now, I’m having a great time. I don’t have to explain myself to my colleagues every day. If want to read a book or blog, or experiment with a couple different approaches to solve a problem, I can! And I don’t have to feel guilty at the next Daily Scrum. And if a specification is incomplete or contradictory, all I have to do is tell the Project Leader and I have peace and quiet for a few days while he clears things up with the customer. And of course, if I tell the Project Leader that task X will take 5 days, I have no one bothering me before the time is up. I am much less responsible for the solution. Of course, I do my job conscientiously, but where my responsibility ends, it ends.”
“How long till the next release?” I asked. “Oh, about 4 months.”
Gee, why doesn’t everyone want to move back?
5 Comments
You will be surprised how many developers like this kind of situation ;o)
It depends heavily on the motivational aspect of course. In my daytime job I have to admit that waterfall is a bless 😉
Sure he could have a great time…but after 4 months, don't look the quality of the code, the amount of features, the matching between features and the real user requirements…
Personally, I expect 3 months of bliss and at least one month of torture.
Of course developer would have enjoyed and will enjoy to do the same. And I guess all developers would love waterfall methodology. But what happened to the project finally??!!!.