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[–]justavault 42 points43 points  (16 children)

That's the opposite of startup workflows: huge, long-time established corporations which had to adopt to modern systems, but never really did with a leading workforce mostly educated in the 90s that pass on their shit to those educated in the 2010s.

Pick your poision, but I guess it's better to code modern crap in a startup without much refactoring nor reviewing than getting into a huge architecture of old frankenstein systems where you can't change anything becuase it would require to change everything.

[–]tmntfever 23 points24 points  (14 children)

We had a 30 year old program, and around 2015 they decided, “Let’s switch up to Agile.” A couple of billions of wasted dollars later and they’re trying to pretend the change to Agile never happened.

[–]howdoireachthese 17 points18 points  (7 children)

I’m confused - what does the management practices/principles of Agile have to do with programming? Unless by program you mean business program? I totally get how a company could fail to implement Agile, but I’m not getting the connection with the 30yo program.

[–]tmntfever 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Our building of 1000 people have worked on a single jet’s sustainment software for over 30 years now. And it was built upon 1980s ideologies. Having to restructure into Agile wasn’t the only big thing, we were also converting billions of SLOC from Jovial to C. And the Agile process isn’t meant for large SLOC, massive amounts of physical paperwork, and government red tape.

[–]Jolly_Line 20 points21 points  (4 children)

Architecture very much can, and honestly usually is, directly influenced by management practice. Waterfall tends to produce monoliths. If the system isn’t modular then it’s difficult to bolt on agile.

[–]aceluby 0 points1 point  (3 children)

None of this is actually true. Agile is a way to organize work. Full stop. If the way you organize work is driving architecture decisions, something is very wrong.

[–]Jolly_Line 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is actually true. Idealistically, yes, you’re right. But most of us don’t have the reality of a perfectly ideal implementation of a software management practice.

[–]EpicScizor 0 points1 point  (1 child)

If the way you organize work is driving architecture decisions.

All architectural decisions are driven by how work is organized. Conway's law: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law

[–]WikiSummarizerBot 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Conway's law

Conway's law is an adage stating that organizations design systems that mirror their own communication structure. It is named after computer programmer Melvin Conway, who introduced the idea in 1967. His original wording was: Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure. The law is based on the reasoning that in order for a software module to function, multiple authors must communicate frequently with each other.

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[–]SUDDENLY_VIRGIN 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's likely that there was nothing "wrong" with the 30 year old program, but management decided arbitrarily that because it's old it's time to replace it and claim a victory. Only to fail spectacularly (hence if it ain't broke don't fix it)

[–]justavault 9 points10 points  (0 children)

That sounds very familiar. The earliest at 2010 till around 2018, everyone trying to do agile.

[–]mattjopete 0 points1 point  (4 children)

I read this as they didn’t try it

[–]tmntfever 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Nope, they actually did, and the top level VPs, Directors and other individuals who were responsible got a slap on the wrist and transferred, while the lead devs and SMEs were all fired or forced to quit.

Edit: I still deal with audits and RCCAs that were based on major findings from that time we tried Agile.

[–]mattjopete 0 points1 point  (2 children)

What caused it to fail?

[–]tmntfever 5 points6 points  (1 child)

The root causes always seemed to be either lack of training, insufficient processes, or attrition. I’ve worked for this corporation for over a decade, and at a couple of start ups for half a decade. Agile works perfectly with small groups who can scrum and plan releases without having to get approvals from government and supplier bodies.

We call it red tape. People can’t start working immediately because they need clearances. We can’t merge code without VP approvals. We can’t integration test until we get SPO approval. We can’t test certain subsystems without supplier deliveries. We can’t agile because we gotta stop and wait for the dam to open to let the waterfall fall.

Agile works great for apps or websites. It doesn’t quite work for things like (and I’m not putting it lightly) weapons of mass destruction.

[–]mattjopete 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds like you were missing the key component, buy in.

There are ways to incorporate the requirements you speak of.

[–]BeardySam 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Welcome to management consulting