After my freshman year of college, I did a summer internship as a computer programmer. My assignment during those four summer months was to complete a considerably large project using technology I had scarcely used before. There were many unknowns, and I had no idea if I could succeed. However, after much effort, I surpassed my own expectations. By the end of the summer, I had not only completed my project but also finished several others. I planned, designed, researched, asked questions, wrote documentation, and presented my work. It was a full engineering experience.

Sadly, almost 30 years later, as a much more senior engineer, I rarely have such opportunities. No engineer I know is ever trusted with a project of that size or given that much time to focus on one thing. About fifteen years ago, the industry began its massive shift toward Scrum-like processes. With that shift, software engineers effectively became assembly-line workers, merely taking one task after another from the hopper. Each task takes no longer than a couple of days. No time is allotted for design or research. A day without a commit to version control is considered a wasted day by most managers. Unfortunately, we now have to content ourselves with daily software errands that are scarcely more interesting than making the morning coffee or fetching the boss’s dry cleaning.

Scrum had its chance; now let’s move on to something better!