Lead Image © liudmilachernetska, 123RF.com

Gleaning Agile Methodology for Infrastructure Projects

Welcome

Article from ADMIN 80/2024

By Ken Hess

I remember when this whole agile methodology (Agile) thing hit several years ago. Project managers began spouting crazy new terms such as sprints, scrum, waterfall, and stand-ups.

I remember when this whole agile methodology (Agile) thing hit several years ago. Project managers began spouting crazy new terms such as sprints, scrum, waterfall, and stand-ups. I'm not a fan of corporate buzzspeak, but Agile has brought a whole new hellscape into focus for those involved in so-called operations. Operations groups include system administrators, database administrators, cloud engineers, network administrators, and the like. We are the people who support systems and services. We are the ones who keep things going. We have hands on keyboards and are the folks in the trenches. In corporate speak, we are responsible for business continuity and day-to-day operations. The last thing we need is another pointless meeting – especially a daily meeting.

Agile might work well for managing the rollout of a new application, codebase, or something related to software development. Keeping close tabs on developers and their progress toward hitting deadlines is wise, but for operations, it's another pain we must endure as lowly tech workers. We have real-time chat services such as Microsoft Teams or Slack that keep us in continuous contact with coworkers. Ours are days driven by interrupts and constant collaboration. The need for a formal meeting to track daily progress is as useful as an intravenous drip of bubonic plague.

For operations groups, Agile is disruptive, and it causes important support issues to be missed because of the daily pressures of having to present a line-item list of what we've done, what we're going to do, and anything that might block us in performing those functions. FYI – my greatest block to productive success is the daily stand-up meeting, scrum call, or whatever you call it. If I'm in the middle of editing configuration files on multiple systems, I don't want a meeting to fall during my work. My connections time out. I forget what I've done and where. My momentum is lost. And for what? A meeting to tell everyone what

...

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).