I recently had a chat with a developer who has a very negative perspective on Agile and Scrum. This isn’t surprising; many people do. One thing he said inspired me to write this blog post.
We were talking about Scrum, and I mentioned that I hate the word “sprint.” It implies that the team must run at full speed. The principles of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development state “Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.” Even Olympic marathon runners can’t sprint indefinitely. I’d prefer a term that doesn’t bring to mind people collapsing on the ground gasping for air at the finish line.
He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, that one of the reasons that Agile is popular is that it’s used to get developers to work more and to work harder. He’s not wrong. The use, and abuse, of story points is part of the issue. Continue reading