This is waterfall method propaganda! It never works out this smoothly. They probably forgot important requirements like: the astronauts need to be alive on Mars.
Waterfall is missing the part where the customer realizes they didn’t actually want to go to Mars they just wanted to view it out of a telescope.
But now they can only travel to Mars and the telescope is out of the budget because you spent so much money on the rocket
Or the funders get bored of waiting after ten years of “no Mars yet” and cancel the project, leaving you with a half finished rocket.
2 years later: It’s now up to the lawyers to figure out if it’s the rocket that doesn’t meet agreed requirements or if it’s on the customer for not giving proper requirements.
I hate how true this is. Not even 2 years later for my case.
Actual real world right now giant rockets include
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One that is being built under waterfall methodology. It has been being built for several years. That’s the Blue Origin New Glen heavy lift reusable rocket
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One that is being developed under an agile methodology, it flew as a subscale lander to test their engine and flight control, it has flown four full test flights, improving on each. That’s SpaceX’s Starship
We are yet to see either launch a payload to orbit
How was appollo programme planned?
It was outsourced to the guy who ran Nazi concentration camps to build ballistic missiles to bomb London with.
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All the projects that have shittier outcomes in my experience is always waterfall. This is mainly because the stakeholders usually have this bright idea to be added in the middle of development that’s really need to be added at all costs and then got angry when the timeline got pushed because of their fucking request breaking a lot of shit.
At least scrum has a lead time of around 2 weeks so that when someone has a idea we can tell them we’ll add it to the backlog and hope they forgot about it during the next sprint planning.
I’m sure, doth the Astrumants should survive the landing, there should be a way to return, and they need a shitter as part of the missed requirements. As it’s a waterfall, that will come in the second, third, and fourth trips.
This is what I came to the comment section for.
If like me you’re not a pro, it seems to literally just mean linear phases, so yeah, any nonlinearity would cause problems.
Someone shared this on Mastodon so I’ll just repost my thoughts from there. (Bonus for Lemmy, I was forced to squeeze all my thoughts into 500 characters, so this is the most succinct I’ve been on this site!)
Pretty incredible how little people seem to understand these. For one thing, every method other than waterfall is a subtype of agile methodology. The major distinction is that waterfall has a series of phases from design through building, testing, and delivery that attempts to plan the whole project up front. Agile methods focus on smaller iteration cycles with frequent, partial deliverables.
Something like kanban is designed for continuous delivery: we want to go to mars weekly.
LEAN development is a scam though, that one is accurate.
The author is also hyping up waterfall too much. Agile was created because waterfall has its shortcomings (e.g. the team realizes too late that what they’re building isn’t what the customer wants).
But I also think it also represents how poorly implemented these ideas are. People say they do agile/kanban/scrum, but in reality they do some freak version of these.
So often it’s waterfall planning and execution with agile names for roles and meetings.
It’s barely waterfall planning either. Often there’s no planning, at least no coordinated one.
Currently at my current workplace we lack coordinated planning between teams. It seems like everybody is working in their own directions and it can take months until we get feedback from other teams. Mostly a product management problem.
The amount of people who say they do agile/kanban/scrum but have never talked to a customer/end user, let alone released something, is frightening
I agree, but agile and scrum are not meant to be followed to the letter no matter what. So people are doing it right if they notice some part of the process should be changed to make it work for them.
Except they often only appear to work.
LEAN from the web:
After each iteration, project managers discuss bottlenecks, identify waste and develop a plan to eliminate it.
1st iteration:
Project Manager A: Requiring approval of multiple Project Managers for the same thing is causing a bottleneck. So is having to wait for a specific manager for a specific topic.
Resolution: Let all managers approve everything and need only a single manager’s approval.
2nd iteration:
Project Manager B: There are too many redundant managers. It’s a waste of resources.
Resolution: Get rid of all mangers but one. Actually, let the engineers manage themselves.
3rd iteration:
Consensus: LEAN development is a scam though
My impression of management science, at this point, is that it’s not. The good ones just do it.
The art style is nice but the content makes no sense. Kanban and scrum are parts of agile. They are not their own systems.
Lean also doesn’t mean you have no money. It’s a system of manufacturing where you cross train people to do the jobs on either side of them so they can pick up slack if needed and keep things moving without hiring more people.
Lean is also short for putting your inventory in an open top dumpster.
Edgy meme: agile bad
NASA: “Yep, we use agile” https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20160006387/downloads/20160006387.pdf?attachment=true
Going to the moon as a step towards going to Mars is so eminently correct that this comic should actually be Agile propaganda
NASA also built the space shuttle, which was a plane that couldn’t fly by itself (as it was supposed to), was slower to turn around and more expensive than older equivalent technologies, and blew up all the astronauts 1.5% of the time.
I mean, they’re great at other things - who else could have made the JWST work flawlessly with one opportunity - but they’re a definite source of hype, and they do something very particular and specialised. Beware endorsements.
Edit: Fuck you, I’m right. Keep 'em coming.
I don’t even care about Agile either way. This just isn’t a good argument for it.
NASA also successfully flew a helicopter on Mars first try.
Yep. They’re probably better than anyone at making a complex system with literal moving parts that works 100% of the time, the first time. On a nearly unlimited budget, with a decades-long schedule. In an institution and culture that’s now a been around a lifetime, staffed with top-notch people.
That’s all perfect for what NASA does, but I wouldn’t recommend a management system that NASA uses to just anyone, just 'cause “da astronauts” use it. Not any more than I’d recommend drinking your own distilled piss to anyone.
I don’t really have an opinion on Agile, even, I just have a problem with selling it this way.
That’s fair enough. The common misconception is that waterfall is great for space missions, when in reality NASA is doing agile.
I agree that not everybody is NASA, so what works for them doesn’t necessarily work for everyone.
I can see you’re frustrated by the downvotes and pushback you’ve received. It’s understandable to feel defensive when your viewpoint isn’t well-received. I appreciate you sharing your perspective, even if it goes against the majority opinion here.
Your points about the space shuttle program’s challenges are valid and worth discussing. It’s important to note the timeframes involved though. The shuttle was developed in the 1970s, well before agile methodologies emerged in the 1990s and 2000s.
Interestingly, one could argue that NASA may have used agile-like practices in the space shuttle program, even if they weren’t labeled as such at the time. However, I did a quick search and couldn’t find much concrete evidence to support this idea. It’s an intriguing area that might merit further research.
Regarding modern agile approaches, while no method is perfect, many organizations have found them helpful for improving flexibility and delivering value incrementally. NASA’s recent use of agile for certain projects shows they’re open to evolving their methods.
I’m curious to hear more about your thoughts on software development approaches for complex engineering projects. What do you see as the pros and cons of different methodologies? Your insights could add a lot to this discussion.
I can see you’re frustrated by the downvotes and pushback you’ve received. It’s understandable to feel defensive when your viewpoint isn’t well-received. I appreciate you sharing your perspective, even if it goes against the majority opinion here.
Thanks for the kind words. FWIW I’m doing fine, this feels like a worthy fight. I know a bad appeal to authority when I see one.
Interestingly, one could argue that NASA may have used agile-like practices in the space shuttle program, even if they weren’t labeled as such at the time. However, I did a quick search and couldn’t find much concrete evidence to support this idea. It’s an intriguing area that might merit further research.
There’s somebody else in the thread talking about the Apollo missions and Agile. Uhh, here, because I don’t know if federated comment links are supported yet. There’s no source for that already provided, though.
What do you see as the pros and cons of different methodologies? Your insights could add a lot to this discussion.
Honestly no. Sorry to undercut you a bit, but I’m not going to be the Dunning-Kruger guy. I know that I don’t know project management.
The creator does not know Scrum, it’s about transparency and not intransparency.
Also Kanban, Scrum and Lean Development are all agile development.
If the person who drew that comic understood anything about complex systems or why agile works when used properly, it could make sense. But it doesn’t.
I like how many devs this pissed off. this picture is whack tho wtf
Cowboy Programming:
PO: Hey we want to go to Mars
- 3 weeks of silence -
Developer: Hey I’m there, where are you?PO: Someone else figure out how to repeat what he did.
Second developer: Sorry, I tried to make sense of his rocket design but I can’t figure out how to make a copy that doesn’t explode before we even put the fuel in.
This is the way.
Assuming you know the developer isn’t a shitbird, because you’re the developer. If this was Investor Humor the idea would be less popular.
I don’t understand the Scrum one. Scrum is also agile with short development cycles, and prioritizes communication with the product owners and stakeholders.
I’ve never heard of lean development, but not a fan of “lean manufacturing,” at least not the way it’s commonly implemented in the U.S. (using primarily temp workers so they can ramp up and down their workforce as needed; and it also exacerbates supply-chain problems).
This can be funny but nothing is right. Kanban is not a method and can be found in agile methodology and lean, scrum is also an agile methodology, and they are wrongly defined
Quick google shows that Kanban is a method. Mainlu around picking up things as the come, but also limiting how much can happen at once.
The project I’m has a team that uses Kanban for the “Maintenance” tasks/development, take what is at the top of the board and do it. Adapt if higher priority things comes around, such as prod bugs. Our developments teams are trying to implement Scrum, where interruptions are to be avoided if possible during sprints. You plan a sprint, try to do that work, and can present it, and iterate when users inevitably changes criteria.
In the meme, kanban does somewhat make sense, since getting armrests is never going to get a high priority as part of building a rocket. Scrum isn’t exactly right, but I can see where it’s coming from. They are all agile methods though.
Kanban is just a board. You can implement different things with it, like pull system, one piece flow, prioritizing, etc…
Yeah, I remember the time i had a project manager who’d come over from the construction industry, used construction industry metaphors, and thought everything would be the same.
Guess usual (state funded) rocket building is Kanban. Space X and BlueOrigin & co are Agile, except that one that was Lean.
I heard fuckin nasa does TDD
deleted by creator
I think this is a bit disingenuous. There’s no customer interaction in these panels.
So waterfall would be:
Customer says they want to go to Mars.
You spend years building a rocket capable of going to Mars, draining all the company budget in the process.
Customer then clarifies they actually meant they wanted to go to Mars, Pennsylvania, USA - not the planet!
Also the strip stops midway through as Waterfall was an invented thing just for a paper. And during your UP work you actually had the customer put in that input and hence it was like in this cartoon strip.