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I do not think the article argues that Agile somehow incites racism and bias, it argues that it doesn't account for them while it should.

asplake 4y ago
Agile's crisis (which is real) is because despite the generativity of the manifesto, the frameworks it spawned largely ignore how change happens in a healthy and sustainable way. It is deeply ironic how much the Agile industry leans into 1990's models of change (solution-driven, imposed, etc). That explains an awful lot. When people think that it's enough that they're right, bad things happen. Agile doesn't actually need a theory of society to understand that, just a little humility.
- nradov 4y ago
  The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) includes review and change cycles driven by teams at the grass roots level. Of course some organizations skip that part, but you can't blame agile frameworks for management choices.
  - asplake 4y ago
    Every framework has some kind of inspect-and-adapt thing going, nothing special about SAFe in that regard. The bigger question is how the organisation is supposed to get from zero (not using the framework) to the point where it is working at every scale, necessary if claims of business agility etc are to be realised. If the answer is a rollout project, then the dissonance there (not to mention the pain) should not be underestimated.
    - nradov 4y ago
      Organizations starting from zero typically hire experienced trainers and consultants to guide them through the initial implementation and then a few cycles. That's expensive, but cheaper than failing. Of course if senior leadership isn't truly committed then it still won't work, but that's not the fault of the framework.
mojzu 4y ago
It's also only a couple of paragraphs in a long post and offers some evidence of parts of the agile methodology (retrospectives and code reviews) being used to harass people so it seems unfair to knock the article for those reasons in my opinion
BlargMcLarg 4y ago
That's a problem with top-down management in general. If your management is largely old white men who pull the strings, yes obviously it's going to account for their opinions the most. Author misses the part where the majority of the working force is also "white men" who see no benefit from this either, because it turns out, the decisions of management aren't for "white men" or even "old white men". The decisions are for "our management".
- spaetzleesser 4y ago
  Agreed. I am a white man but I don’t feel much connection to upper management. It doesn’t really matter if the leaders are white, not white, male or not. They are out for themselves and don’t really care about their underlings.

asplake 4y ago

Agile's crisis (which is real) is because despite the generativity of the manifesto, the frameworks it spawned largely ignore how change happens in a healthy and sustainable way. It is deeply ironic how much the Agile industry leans into 1990's models of change (solution-driven, imposed, etc). That explains an awful lot. When people think that it's enough that they're right, bad things happen. Agile doesn't actually need a theory of society to understand that, just a little humility.

nradov 4y ago
The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) includes review and change cycles driven by teams at the grass roots level. Of course some organizations skip that part, but you can't blame agile frameworks for management choices.
- asplake 4y ago
  Every framework has some kind of inspect-and-adapt thing going, nothing special about SAFe in that regard. The bigger question is how the organisation is supposed to get from zero (not using the framework) to the point where it is working at every scale, necessary if claims of business agility etc are to be realised. If the answer is a rollout project, then the dissonance there (not to mention the pain) should not be underestimated.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Organizations starting from zero typically hire experienced trainers and consultants to guide them through the initial implementation and then a few cycles. That's expensive, but cheaper than failing. Of course if senior leadership isn't truly committed then it still won't work, but that's not the fault of the framework.

mojzu 4y ago

It's also only a couple of paragraphs in a long post and offers some evidence of parts of the agile methodology (retrospectives and code reviews) being used to harass people so it seems unfair to knock the article for those reasons in my opinion

BlargMcLarg 4y ago

That's a problem with top-down management in general. If your management is largely old white men who pull the strings, yes obviously it's going to account for their opinions the most. Author misses the part where the majority of the working force is also "white men" who see no benefit from this either, because it turns out, the decisions of management aren't for "white men" or even "old white men". The decisions are for "our management".

spaetzleesser 4y ago
Agreed. I am a white man but I don’t feel much connection to upper management. It doesn’t really matter if the leaders are white, not white, male or not. They are out for themselves and don’t really care about their underlings.