[teampractices] [Engineering] Feedback requested on proposal for creation of Agile Specialist Group

Wed Mar 12 23:54:50 UTC 2014

On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 4:42 PM, Oliver Keyes <okeyes at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> The objection is pretty self-explanatory; agile is a philosophy that
> dictates putting things we strongly suspect, or even know, to be actively
> buggy, in front of users. When doing so includes replacing or superseding
> core functionality and either forcing or strongly suggesting that users
> should use the buggy replacement, users get, ah, pissed. Users like things
> that work, and when you replace something that works with something that
> doesn't while insisting it'll totally be more usable at some undefined
> point in the future we can't pin down because we don't actually know in
> detail what we'll be doing more than 2 weeks in advance, they start to
> wonder very loudly at our competence.
>
>

I understand your description of the objection and that some users are
intolerant of the degree to which we break things. However, I think this is
a mischaracterization of agile philosophy, or at least is an interpretation
of the agile manifesto [1]/agile principles [2] that I don't agree with. It
is still possible to create thoroughly tested/QA'd software with minimal
bugs and do it while embracing an agile mindset. I think that we as an
engineering organization place a higher priority on getting experiments and
features in front of our users than we do on polish, but that is not
because to do so is necessarily agile.

Still, I would like to know where the conversation is happening more
broadly in the community so I can better understand it and engage in it.

[1] http://agilemanifesto.org/
[2] http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html
-- 
Arthur Richards
Software Engineer, Mobile
[[User:Awjrichards]]
IRC: awjr
+1-415-839-6885 x6687
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