I just read The Agile Disease and can’t help but chuckle. I love it when people paint with nice big broad brushes point at those ‘other’ people and then apply nice labels to them. I’ll be sure to let my clients know that they are ‘Mediocre’. Suppose I’m mediocre too sense I work in the IT world and don’t live in the ivory tower of product land.
Thanks much douche bag.
Other than that – yeah – you got a point. We’ve created an entire ecosystem around ‘progress’ some of the progress is real, some of it is for show. However we have a problem that nobody, and I really mean nobody wants to go away: as long as people (humans w/ human brains) are involved in business, IT, and decision making we are going to have these cycles. Some times the results are real forward progress. Often the cycles just throw garbage up in the air. However, the positive side affect either way is that new opportunities are created. Otherwise we'd still be stuck with punch cards and COBOL.
I’m sure game developers write great code that ships on time and goes out the door with 0 defects. That is why I can walk through walls and float in the air in Halo3 and some other FPS games. Whatever.
I completely agree that the process by which you hire FTEs, bring on contractors and consultants is critical and more important than the actual processes used. However, good luck getting people to hang around long if you are as arrogant and condescending as people like Mr. Halliwell. Perhaps this is why Joe Spolsky is interviewing so often – I can get past his interview – I just wouldn’t want to hang out at his shop very long.
Anyway – perhaps some humility and more human personality and less arrogance would make the point better.