Why Developers dislike Agile?

Agile is a hot topic in the IT industry. It was introduced to circumvent the limitations of traditional software development methodology, which has typically relied on long-term planning and heavy design documentation that were difficult to execute. Agile allows developers to work with shorter time frames and more frequent feedback loops, this means they can create working products faster—but it also means these developer groups must spend more time managing project expectations.

I’ve seen Developers dislike this because it takes away from their focus on actually developing something useful for the customer. They feel like they are spending too much time brainstorming future plans or explaining why they couldn't finish something according to an arbitrary timeline, instead of focusing on what’s important, which is creating a working software product now!

What is Agile and what developers think of it

#Agile is an iterative and incremental approach to #software development and project management. This means that teams will plan, implement, review and improve their work until it's done, in small increments. It also requires close collaboration between all stakeholders to ensure the project moves forward as needed and has continuous feedback and rapid product releases.

Agile prepares and requires development and product teams to react and adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs.

Since Agile advocates transparency and is intended for teams to self-organize, it requires transparency of work being delivered and visibility of issues as they happen. This in turn helps the team of project management to be address issues in a timely fashion.

#Developers fear these same tools could be damaging if applied incorrectly leading to micro-management instead of empowerment, inflexibility instead of adaptability and isolation instead of #collaboration.?

Agile is stressful

Given tight release cycles and project deadlines, the pressure on software developers to continuously deliver new features and updates in and Agile environment is about as high as it can be. This puts a lot of stress on individuals and this happens at the expense of their quality of life and well-being.

?Ways scrum masters or project managers could alleviate this issue is by making the work environment and team interactions more engaging e.g., gamifying Agile ceremonies and building engagement amongst team members.

In my experience increasing autonomy of individual team members, developers during their workday and giving them more space to maneuver their day-to-day activities has been shown to reduce feelings of stress, while increasing feelings of happiness, engagement, and empowerment.

“Giving team members, developers more space to maneuver their day-day activities has shown to improve happiness, engagement and empowerment.”

Is going back to waterfall better

Going back to conventional way of doing things (waterfall model) is not the answer for today's customer needs and could prove to be an inefficient way of product development. ?

Businesses today are dynamic where customer needs and demands are constantly changing. It is not possible to predict these changing requirements before the product is even developed and in the waterfall model, all changes or new requests from customers have to go back to the drawing board which incurs extra cost, delayed product release and costs heavy wastage of time and money.

Implementing an effective Agile methodology is an inevitable trend that teams must adapt to when customer needs are dynamic and evolve as the market changes.

How does Agile fail

The primary reason why Agile implementation fails is because it's not clearly understood by those who try to implement it. This was the case with Scrum in the early days. In other cases, those who have been running #Scrum practices for months do not really understand the essence of it. This is evident when you come across issues related to velocity, team planning etc. This kind of misunderstanding can be dangerous and could lead to organizational challenges in the long run.

The other reason that Agile fails, stems from lack of support for cultural transition from organizational leadership and external pressure to follow old practices. Not giving up old practices or following them half-heartedly can easily slow or even kill an organizations’ s Agile transformation.

Introducing Agile requires leadership and a willingness to embrace change from throughout the organization. Note that this is not leadership article, but getting leaders to create an environment where transformation can happen through coaching and implementing improvement systems helps a ton and contributes to the success of organizations’ s Agile transformation journey in the long run.

Another reason why Agile could fail is the fear of failure that comes from misunderstanding of what really constitutes success on an Agile project. This can lead to management and leadership assuming they're not getting desired results and then halting the transformation, even when teams are showing good progress (therefore better business value).

For Agile to work, it needs everyone throughout the organization (Management, Leadership and Development Teams) to fully embrace its principles and this also includes its failures. This in turn implies embracing transparency, openness and sharing information across all levels of the organization in your Agile journey.

Agile is dependent on several factors; people are just one of them. As with any other practice, if people are not receptive to change or are unwilling to adapt, then chances are that Agile transformation will miserably fail.

Summary

In conclusion, this article brings to light some important aspects of understanding how Agile needs to be implemented in order for it to be successful and also highlights that Developers inherently do not dislike Agile, rather they have a negative reaction towards its implementation, as there are many factors that can make or break their engagement with organizational Agile practices.

If you want your organization to adopt Agile practices and reap all of the benefits therein, take care when implementing those same practices so as not to alienate them from the people who need to be a part of it.

What has been your experience with Agile? Share your thoughts below!