Re:Agile as Trauma
by mbrodersen on Saturday October 16, 2021 @07:15PM
(#28892438)
Baking a cake is not analogous to software development. Bakers will bake the same product thousands of times. Developers will only “bake” a cake once. And they have to work with the cake eater to make sure he/she gets exactly the cake they want. In other words, developers write a new recipe every time. It might be inspired by similar recipes but each one is unique.
Non-software example. Let's say you want to bake a cake.
* First you find a recipe.
* Then you check your pantry and make a grocery list of
* Then you go to the grocery and buy the ingredients on your list
* Then you return home and unpack the groceries and begin making the batter, and maybe in parallel the icing
* Then you bake the cake
* Then you let the cake cool enough
* Then you can apply the icing to the cake
* Then you let it set a bit
* Now you can serve the cake to users
The tasks are discrete, and for the most part have a strict order.
You do not need to "iterate" and discover the steps, since its something you've done before and there's well understood industry practice.
You can project the start to finish time, and it may or may not fit into your "sprint", which is entirely due to the arbitrary nature of sprint lengths.
MAYBE you can engage with users on the recipe selection, and then later to maybe taste the icing.. but that's about it. The customers does not give a damn about the ingredients, your grocery list, how long to bake it, or how long you let it cool, etc.