this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
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It's half way to self management.
Software exists in a world that kind of exists outside of property. Cynics like to think that Agile got big because as some kind of fad because the kids love it, but the reality is that fully hierarchical models just cannot keep up with self organising teams.
The old model - the model that most of the rest of the world of work still uses - simply cannot compete on a level playing field where the means of production (a cheap computer) are available to all. A landowner can stop you building your own house, but Microsoft can't really stop you building your own software, so they still have to put in work to collect rent.
Imagine what we could accomplish as a species if the goals and distribution of resources were also decided democratically.
My point isn't actually about the software.
Agile is a limited form of workplace democracy that succeeded because the usual forms of disciplining workers couldn't be enforced to stop it. It's taken off in software because the outlay for software is so low that people can just quit their jobs and start a rival project with preferable working conditions. It's stuck around because it's significantly more effective than dictat.
I have problems with agile too. A lot of the "ceremonies" seem more like cult rituals and bad practices are often assumed to be self justifying when they should be interrogated. (I once had a bust up in the office because I insisted in creating a future proof test framework instead of writing just what's needed at the time. I was overruled and I'm still mad about it).
So I guess my point isn't even about the specific agile practices either.
The point is that workers are able to self manage when they're allowed to, and agile has accidentally proven this to be the case. Other work places should adopt some of these ideas. And these ideas should be pushed further, into business decisions and HR and management. And physical communities etc. all the way up to actual government.
Interesting perspective, never really looked at it like that, I've always just interacted with the corporatized bullshit implementations of Agile.
It seems Agile really did have a kernel of worker self management in it but the original people behind it didn't have the right ideological framework to realize that this is what they're trying to achieve.
Microsoft can't stop you from building software...... yet.
As I've been putting it: software is made of labor.
Unfortunately the actual reason Agile got big is that the cult of MBAs saw daily meetings putting scores on estimates and absolutely creamed their slacks.