The State of Agile Software in 2018
This may vary from region to region, but my biggest issue with the present Agile trend is the cargo-culting of SCRUM. Sprints, standups, reviews and retros, planning poker, all followed blindly, but to no effect. Worse yet, the dreaded term "anti-agile" is used to shut down any other way of operating.<p>It has almost become a religion and any attempts at advocating planning discipline or detailed designs (even in domains where it's called for) are quickly labeled and rejected as "waterfall". Some project managers trained in agile methodologies have trouble grasping some basic common sense project management practices such as dependency tracking and capacity planning.<p>I recently gave up on all buzzwords and boiled the whole thing down to 3 things:<p>1. Deliver things in small, testable chunks<p>2. Start with a best-effort plan, but refine weekly based on how things went<p>3. If you're blocked or your work is at risk, let others know ASAP