Agile Development: Old Habits Die Hard

by Kelly Waters

In agile development, it's easy to develop bad habits!

Or to have trouble kicking them.

A blog post from Chris Stirling quotes some good examples...

Daily stand-ups not every day
Mini waterfalls in iterations
Pressing too hard for increased productivity
Team Leaders taking over team responsibilities

I've certainly seen all of these bad habits in action. In fact I've done them all myself!

In Chris's blog post, "emergent misbehaviour", he outlines some of the reasons people might fall into these habits, and the implications and pitfalls in doing so. Unfortunately he doesn't offer much advice for avoiding them though. I guess it's just a case of understanding why these practices are bad, and having good discipline.

See also:
3 New Year's Resolutions for agile team members