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Ask HN: Had you ever found Agile (a.k.a. SCRUM) to work?

by xigurat on 3/19/25, 11:45 AM with 10 comments

I'm dealing with a head of product who is extremely process-driven. He's a stickler for Agile rituals - strict definitions of done, rigid meetings, and a "by the book" approach to SCRUM. His main concern is organizational discipline rather than the quality of our product, and it's starting to feel like it's stifling both flexibility and innovation. Now, he's even planning to bring on a full-time Scrum Master, even though our engineering team is just 10 engineers split across two product teams, each with its own manager.

Sometimes it feels like this focus on process is more about ideology than practical results - almost like Agile in theory is great, but in practice it can impede initiative and product evolution.

Have you ever seen Agile/SCRUM work well in the wild? What's your experience?

  • by Festro on 3/19/25, 12:29 PM

    Agile should never be applied 'by the book', every team is different. Agile works best when it is...actually agile. Moulding and fitting a team of varied individuals with enough compromises to make them all work together better.

    That's why Agile boards can be lists, or Kanban, or cards, etc. That's why there are dozens of task estimation systems from points to T-shirt size. You find the one your team vibes with the most, and you run with it.

    I've worked within several project management systems now and Agile has been the best of the bunch when it has team buy-in. It's limited to teams that have can safely predict their workload ahead of time (i.e. agencies can't predict client requests so they can't run Agile, i.e. helpdesk, marketing teams, etc). But development teams can thrive on the structure, tools, and problem-solving workflows Agile hands to its users.

    Just don't buy into the cult of dogma and strict adherence that the sits on the extreme end. That's either coming from someone who is selling Agile consultancy/certifications, or it's a user of Agile who fits the process personally in every way but can't see why others may struggle with aspects (lack of empathy).

    A scrum master for 10 people isn't crazy. But scrum masters are hit and miss. Their job is to make agile work, some take that to mean drilling in the dogma, others take it to mean bending the rules responsibly. I've seen SMs who are totally superfluous, and ones who truly add value like a good PM. Personally, I'd avoid an SM if the managers can handle project/product management well enough already.

  • by acdha on 3/19/25, 1:16 PM

    Go back to the origin of Agile: https://agilemanifesto.org/

    It works well if you don’t treat it as a religion full of ceremony and dogma. If you stay focused on the results, the idea that process is a tool to make better products is quite effective. If you treat the process as the product, which it sounds like you’re suffering from, it will hold you back - and that’s really saying that your organizational incentives are misaligned and don’t reward success.

  • by simne on 3/19/25, 12:54 PM

    From my experience and talks with tops of really large projects (country-wide wi-fi network as example), I think, people should first make at least one project with waterfall approach and only after this could use Agile really effective.

    Discipline is really problem within agile teams, and Agile approach is not effective when team is not disciplined enough.

    But, when team already gain good discipline, for example within large waterfall project, will really flourish after switch to Agile/SCRUM.

    So, as I see, good approach to use waterfall project as bench and as filter (some people just could not work in team at all, or could not work in Agile environment, so unfortunately need layoff them), and than switch survivors to Agile.

    Must admit, could exist other ways to achieve efficient Agile, but at the moment I don't think they as effective as waterfall train bench and only after it Agile.

  • by austin-cheney on 3/19/25, 12:06 PM

    Its a Catch-22. Agile works well in a well disciplined team, but if your team lacks the discipline to increase velocity without Agile there isn't much Agile can do to help. That is entirely a people problem.

  • by billy99k on 3/19/25, 12:16 PM

    Any time a manager has tried to rigidly use scrum, things fell apart quickly. I think it can work, but you need to tailor it to each situation/product.

  • by RayFrankenstein on 3/20/25, 8:38 PM

    I maintain a compendium of 100's of the best developer comments about agile. Check it out and make your own conclusions.

    https://github.com/rayfrankenstein/AITOW/blob/master/README....

  • by PaulHoule on 3/19/25, 11:50 AM

    Often it ‘works’ well when people are going through the motions but actually doing something else.

  • by duxup on 3/19/25, 12:25 PM

    I like process, at least the idea, but it’s always a slippery slope with people.

    https://youtu.be/bTuLbiIVDpk

  • by blueflow on 3/19/25, 12:12 PM

    Dogmatic approaches from books never work well. And if they don't work well, the hardliners will assert that the problem is that people didn't follow the books correctly. The bible, Marx, Sutherland, its all the same.