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@weeklyshowpodcast.bsky.social Jon may already be aware but sadly the Great Glen Hansard died this morning in Dublin. This is a memory from happier times, and a moment that Jon handled perfectly. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx8y...

Happier times, and credit to Jon Stewart on his part in this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx8y...

Still in shock. Glan Hansard, Activist, Husband, Dad, The Commitments, The Frames, Solo Artist, Actor, Oscar Winner And still I think underrated. youtu.be/CC7tsUUB3mo?...

WHAT THE FUCK! This is shocking. RIP.

I think at the heart of this is many things are discounted as not delivering user value. User value is only a feature in the product. A prototype is sometimes not considered delivered value. Even though it might fundamentally clarify a users understanding of the problem and the solution.

But instead we get. This will take 3 sprints to fully implement. 3 sprints later... "Why are there 3 tabs on this screen?" "Why is that a pop up?"

A better approach would be a partially working feature. A rough but functional UI, that's read only. But it's got the full vertical slice. Next sprint we'll add editing. After that we'll polish the UI based on feedback.

Well, you might say, why is it taking 3 sprints? Why aren't we delivering something tangible in one sprint. We could. But typically the back end teams build the DB changes, and API, and the front end stuff doesn't happen until there's a backend to work on.

Even teams that accept that idea have problems. Talk to users, find out what they want. take their "talk" at face value. Deliver it over 3 sprints. You've delivered value, prioritised. But when they finally get it, they have problems. Nobody took the time to explore what the real value was.

The ceremony around agile, is not agile. It's guiderails to allow the idea of agile to be communicated, taught, learned. It's an attempt to codify what teams that ARE agile do naturally. There are very few such teams. We need guard rails. But, the guard rails themselves are not the point.

If you've kept the sprints, the story points, the standups, the retros, but you've thrown away the "build something and get user feedback" Then what you've done is keep the cost of agile and dispense with the benefit. And that's not uncommon. It's really not. You're not bad.

But you say... the sprints aren't really about iterating on ideas. They're about being able to see where we are in a plan, whether we're falling behind so we can reprioritise. That's fine.... It might be agile project management. It's not agile software development. But it's fine.

But you say... our users are busy. They don't attend demos, and don't want to play with prototypes. We get their feedback on the finished product and we fix it. That's fine. It's not Agile.

I have absolutely no problem with teams not being agile. There are lots of ways to build software and there are many contraints on teams, many of which can't be mitigated. If Agile doesn't work for you just admit it, figure out what does work. Don't pretend your ceremony is driven by "Agile"

Putting something in the hands of users, or potentially putting multiple alternatives in the hands of users is one of the best ways to either show them a better way, or have them explain why the supposedly worse UX makes more sense for them. THAT'S WHY WE PUT EARLY IDEAS IN THEIR HANDS!!!!

Also. Your users are almost certainly not UX designers or Software Development extras. Can we please stop building features simple because the users want it that way. If what the users want is objectively bad UX, find out why they want that. Don't a) accept it blindly, or b) overrule it.

If you've broken huge projects into small sprints that finally deliver something to the users at the end of lots of sprints, you are not being agile. This isn't a "what is real agile" debate. You're not BEING agile. You're not GETTING IT.

Agile Software Development is NOT break big projects into small sprints. Agile Software Development IS build something, then iterate. I have seen so many teams spend extraordinary effort on the ceremony of Scrum, and never once manage or even try to put some early idea in the hands of users.

I am genuinely encouraging them to get very good at live music because a) they like it and b) it might actually pay a modest wage. I *think* People will still pay to see humans play music.

I definitely agree with that. But I think we might be moving to a world where software devs are like people who come round to assemble your ikea furniture for you. I don’t envy my kid doing his leaving cert this year. They got fucked by Covid, and now unprecedented uncertainty on careers.