Everyone wants to improve their experience at work.
Whether that takes the form of increasing efficiency, reducing confusion and anxiety about what needs to be done, feeling like your ideas and feedback are heard and respected, or simply knowing that the projects you work on are making an impact, there are seemingly endless ideas about how the nature of work can be improved for employees and employers alike.
Within the world of software, agile practices have been among the most talked about ways of improving processes. But are they all that they're cracked up to be?
Proponents of agile laud the focus on the individual, the mandate to build working software on fast timetables, and the ability to quickly and easily respond to change. The processes themselves, like kanban boards and daily stand-ups, are praised and evangelized by many who have made the switch to agile practices on their team or organization.
But agile is not without its critics. Detractors say agile can be a time waste when too much energy is spent maintaining the process itself for the sake of process, and that it's simply incompatible with certain personality types, working styles, and the demands of some types of jobs. They may even feel micromanaged by the frequent check-ins. While agile may work for management, it doesn't work for them.
So what do you think? It's clear that agile is continuing to see adoption across the software industry. But is it benefiting everyone? And if not, who is the real beneficiary?
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