Why do people complaining that they can’t do agile development with 50 crap developers not see that the problem is in the second part of that statement, not the first? I got an e-mail last week that shows the point perfectly:
We discussed whether an agile approach is right, and I concluded that not everyone can work that way.
Quite true. I find it self-evident that not everyone can do software development, agile or any other way. That requires brains, knowledge, experience is a plus, and hopefully some talent as well. And of course, there is no generic approach that works in every context.
We think that an agile approach asks programmers to be much more engaged than when they’re just being served what to do
It’s hard for me to make a comparison to answer this. I’ve always tried to be very engaged in my own work and I expected the same from everyone else working with me, even before I ever did anything resembling agile. I’ve never seen a project where people were asked not to be engaged into what they need to do, but out of general principle I would refuse to participate in one.
If your programmers aren’t engaged and they get everything served to them, your problem is right there. It is not in a process, agile or non agile.
Which means the choice of people is very important
I completely agree. Once again, this isn’t particularly specific to agile software development approaches – or even software development at all. This is important for any craft. My former colleague Relja Jovic, who was the executive editor at PC World Yugoslavia when I worked there, used to say “From shit, you can only make a shit pie” whenever we were asked to get someone unqualified to write an article (“how hard can it be?”). That holds true for programming, testing, analysis, project management and anything else to do with delivering software. With crap people, you get crap output. Tough luck. Maybe hire people who know how to deliver software instead?
