In this video from nine years ago, Allen Holub explains how Agile works saying,
“The process itself is very simple. You start off by talking to your customers to find out what they need. And then you break off a small chunk of that and you build it & you give it to them. That’s it.”
Instantly, Evertyhing Falls Apart For Me
This is where everything falls apart & it is the core issue of all software development.
Let me explain why.
Users do not want to talk to you (at all or for very long) about what they need / want.
I’ve had internal “customers” who ask for very specific features (even including a drawing of the WinForm design). I have taken that drawing & reproduced it in code exactly. I then create usage videos & provide the working code. After that…crickets. I hear nothing.
User, Six Months Later, Where Is Functionality?
Then 6 months later, I get a call, “Hey, why didn’t you ever do X?” (They’re referring to this thing that I did and documented with video.)
I say, “Well, you never even watched the video & in 6 months you’ve never even tried the functionality that you begged for? Here’s the thing, you need to right-click to get to that functionality. It is in the product.”
A sheepish reply, “Oh, I didn’t know the functionality was there.”
That is incredible. Even the functionality the user said was absolutely necessary and “must have”, they never even tried. They never even watched the video of how the functionality would work. Users don’t care until they care.
Users don’t even try the functionality which they design and they beg for.
The One Truth of IT Work
Users don’t want to sit around talking about what they want and what you (Software Dev) should put into the application. Instead, they just want you to know what they want.
Also, please answer the following question
In What World Does A Dev Team Have A User Who They Can Continually Question?
I’ve worked in IT for > 33 years & I have no idea what world exists where a User sits in a room with Devs & works with them.
Additionally, 99% of products are used externally to the company creating them. How would you ever get a user to be available like that? It’s not possible.
Best Products Have A Visionary (Product) Owner
That’s why the best products have a Owner (who wants the product herself) who knows what the users want and drives the product to the vision.
Steve Jobs & iPod: A Good Example
For example, Steve Jobs wanted a music player in his pocket and drove ruthlessly towards the iPod. That only exists in rare companies (like Spotify, Netflix, Apple (in past)).
It doesn’t exist in 99% of companies who pay developers to write code. They just write code & don’t really care how the product works. (Yep, I just said it out loud.)
And that is true in every (paid) role (QA, Project Mgr, Support, etc.) within the company.
Why True Agile Rarely Exists
This all explains why True Agile rarely exists and why so much software is created which fails the user.
The Billion-dollar Problem / Solution
If you could solve this one problem, you’d get rich:
Companies don’t know what the user wants & the user doesn’t know (or want) to use their time to tell companies what they want.
Concentrate on solving that problem and you’ll keep busy for the rest of your life.
It seems that is what Agile Consultants promise and they get paid all day long.