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Is there life after Agile? Agile principles may be too informal and artisan-based for today's complex digital operations. The nice thing about methodologies is that there will be a new one along in a few minutes
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You know, the irony of all this is that software development is actually a highly social process, and a successful social process does not come about from formal methodologies but rather innate or trained social skills. Psychological skills like listening, non-violent communication, team building, etc.
Yes, processes are needed, but typically only when members in the process are corrupting the process. And therein is my estimation of the problem -- we, as humans, are usually not proficient at socialization. Or we come with our own agendas (and fears) that corrupt the process. Or frankly, both. The fourth kind is the worst, which any developer that prefaces his/her title with the word "senior" has experienced: a highly skilled anti-social engineer who manages (pun intended) to put forth their own agenda with varying affects, from disillusionment, "it's just a paycheck", to more devastating affects.
The one and only test you need that you are working with the latter kind is when he/she says "don't take it personally." Because a successful social process works only when people are personally vested in their own goals and accomplishments and the goals and accomplishments of the other people on the project.
The rest of us, what we need are less methodologies and more training in how to be functionally social, with the effect being that even fewer methodologies are needed. Yes, we still need to be skillful at our technical work, but if we don't figure out the social process, then everyone (the customer, the QA dept, the developer, the manager) will continue to create failed or mostly failed projects--either personal-subjective or product-objective or both.
The only way out of this loop is to develop social skills -- not the BS that management inflicts on you with week long "retreats" (if you are so lucky/unlucky) but real skills where we acknowledge each other as human beings with diverse and often divergent goals and at the same time agree to collaborate on something and have the skills to work out the differences that doesn't rip out the human in us but instead leaves us feeling validated, recognized, and with our honor and dignity, if not elevated, at least left intact.
Thanks for reading. 
Marc
modified 20-Dec-15 18:55pm.
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A superb response Marc where I found myself nodding in agreement pretty much all the way through.
My only comment would be that I'm not sure how you would teach social skills to those that require them. Some people find socialisation easy, whereas to others it is daunting or even frightening. I have met people who are naturally gregarious and outgoing, and also with those who are insular and withdrawn.
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this, as everyone is different and we all shine in different ways. Every group needs a leader. The problem comes when the leader turns into a manager, and no one else in the group is able to stand up to them.
There is a distinction between a leader and a manager. A leader is someone who people want to follow (hence the term "leader"). A leader has the interests of the group at heart and wants what is best for the group as a whole. A manager has an entirely different agenda. They want what is best for themselves (or some other group that they represent) and have little interest in the group itself.
In a nutshell we need more leaders and fewer managers.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
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 Very true!
I would add that all programming is a form of prototyping. In the hardware world, engineers and designers put their hearts and souls into a prototype. If you aren't willing to do the same for software, you should leave the profession!
That being said, there are times when, as a previous boss of mine put it, you have to "shoot the engineer" and get the product out the door. The name of the game is, after all, money, and it is sometimes better from a marketing viewpoint to release a product with missing features now rather than release a perfect product in a month's time.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: and it is sometimes better from a marketing viewpoint to release a product with missing features now rather than release a perfect product in a month's time.
That's Apple's entire marketing strategy 
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
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Ah, you mean ...
"Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan"
(Agile Manifesto)
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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Whatever your stance on “too PC” is, it is a good idea to think about the words we use and what effect they can have on people. I'd suggest we add it to the Lounge, but then it would be empty (some days)
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After a tough year, the company has managed to fix many of the issues that bugged users, businesses, and anyone else who came across Windows 10. Spoiler alert!
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Spoiler alert!
Hardly. We've been hearing the same thing for 20 years. Oh sure, the words are different, but the story is the same.
Marc
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Thousands of websites will generate errors in browsers if their owners don't replace certificates in less than a month As opposed to the havok that would be caused by insecure browsers
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The vulnerability allows a crafted attachment to an e-mail to bypass Outlook's layers of security by exploiting Office's Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) capabilities and Outlook's Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF)—the e-mail attachment method associated with Outlook messages' winmail.dat attachments. A security vulnerability in Outlook? Well, that's a first.
And of course it had to involve Flash - it's like the Perfect Storm for hacks
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What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.
Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???
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Posted Dec. 19th. on Sergey Tkachenko's WinAero Blog: [^].
Sergey lists his criticisms of Win 10 in this article:
"Compatiblity: in Windows 10, some apps have broken Unicode support.
Drivers: some specific hardware the end user might own has no drivers for Windows 10.
Usability: Windows 10 changed a lot of things all over again for Windows 7 users, so they will need to learn a lot of things from scratch. There is no way to do many things which you could previously do!
Deleted and ruined features: many features have been discontinued, others have been overly simplified, that is, dumbed down to eliminate even the most basic features.
Loss of control over settings: many settings have disappeared. For example, updates are forced. Telemetry and Defender cannot be disabled.
Edge browser is a total disappointment, features like Cortana do not work in many regions and are of little practical use on PC hardware."
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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Looks like turning off the wupdate was a great idea. 
Patrice
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Albert Einstein
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After logging in for the first time, it's the first thing I do on any personal machine and have done so for years.
Just like the answering machine on a mobile-phone. Thanks, but er - no.
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Stars explode on a fairly regular basis, but they’re virtually impossible to predict. Now, for the first time ever, astronomers have captured an image of supernova they knew was coming. Here’s how they did it. "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!"
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Oh, they "predicted" something that happened 100,000 light years ago.
Are they doing astronomy or astrology?
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newton.saber wrote: 100,000 light years ago
Pedantry corner: A "light year" is a measurement of distance, not time. 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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WebAssembly is a new binary format for compilation to the web. It is in the process of being designed and implemented as we speak, in collaboration among the major browser vendors. If, by "happening", you mean, "it kind of works, but you can't use it anywhere other than your machine"
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Windows Phone users have been eagerly awaiting the Windows 10 Mobile upgrade for their handsets in recent weeks, after Microsoft said a couple of months ago that it would "begin rolling out in December". However, the company delivered some bad news today to those hoping to upgrade their devices before the end of the year. "Then the Whos down in Whoville will all cry, 'Boo Hoo!'"
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As a Windows Phone user, I was wondering about this last week. Oh well, 8.1 still works just fine. 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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Microsoft has a new app out called ‘Microsoft Apps‘ on Android that contains a list of its Android apps that you can download on the Android app store. And it's already bigger than the Windows Phone store
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Google today announced its search engine has started indexing HTTPS pages by default. More specifically, Google Search now crawls HTTPS equivalents of HTTP pages, even when the former are not linked to from any page. There: all the web security problems solved
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I'd think that would cut down on the 302 redirects and improve search engine optimization.
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Microsoft is developing a programme that can predict whether criminals will re-offend within six months, according to a video discovered by Fusion. "The Precogs are never wrong. But, occasionally... they do disagree."
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