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Re:Where did all the developers go? by sergiotapia on Tuesday May 13, 2014 @11:59AM (#7738796)
>Is it because we’ve been hijacked by Scrum professionals, certification wonks, vendors, and other ‘professionals’ who do everything but deliver software?

Right on the money I'm afraid.

Re:Where did all the developers go? by joshstrange on Tuesday May 13, 2014 @12:22PM (#7738939)
Yep, the "Agile" that I was taught through a 2-day course I went to for a client I used to work with was quite different than the "Core Agile" that was laid out originally. It didn't take long for the company to slide back into a sort of waterfall-agile or, as this author phrases it "everyone is falling backwards reverting to 30 day waterfall sprints under the umbrella of Scrum".

Really sad that at the end of the day "Agile" meant more admin work and meetings and no noticeable improvements (to me). Of course management saw "improvements" but the "scrum masters" would just tweak numbers to make it look like we met deadlines or completed enough story points. It was really sickening to watch everyone pat everyone else on the back for doing a good job when I knew at least 1/3rd of the scrum teams didn't get close to what they were supposed to accomplish.

Re:Where did all the developers go? by twistedpair on Tuesday May 13, 2014 @12:47PM (#7739104)
It goes both ways. I've been at a company that had "scrum coaches" that ensured the Agile practices were followed to the letter and fought against the higher managers when they pushed back in waterfall like ways. Agile was quite a success and we shipped a ton of bug free/stable released of our product in 1/6 the time as anyone in the corporate had bid the job at. The process also engaged and empowered developers far more than they had been in the past.

Conversely, at another employer they pasteurized "agile" into their own canned "agile-fall" methodology that had many antipodal theoretical conflicts, resulting in just 4 week single iteration waterfall sprints. The results of said agile-fall were very lackluster as no one was empowered, and there no greater clarity into process for dev's.

As such, there is certainly a right and wrong way to do agile. I'd say too many companies fear it because it let's the patients run the asylum (dev's) and reveals that you really don't need so many PHB's.

Re:Where did all the developers go? by atomicfiredoll on Tuesday May 13, 2014 @02:19PM (#7739714)
This seems pretty dead-on. When hiring for a company, it's generally understood that having talented developers in your company will help attract other talented developers.

As the groups mentioned in the above comment have shown a stronger presence, even more people from these groups appear. And, as the number of developers has dwindled, there has been less reason for others in their profession to come and share.