Should I avoid Agile shops? [closed]

Question

I'm job hunting and I see a lot of shops are using Agile. I've never worked in an Agile shop but have taken some workshops, and read plenty of articles and discussions.

I have a medical disability that requires me to take extra sick days sporadically. My condition is completely unpredictable – I don’t know how many days I’ll miss next week, next month or next year. I’ve gone 6 months w/o missing a day, but I’ve gone 6 months missing 2-3 days/week.

Every shop I’ve been at there’s always been plenty of work to do. I’ve worked on features for the next release, architecture and design for the next+1 release, bug fixes, etc.

I’m concerned about working in a sprint structure where I have a deliverable, say, every 2 weeks, because I don’t know if I’m going to have 10 days or 4 days in those two weeks. Should an Agile shop be able to accommodate me or would it not be a good fit?

Answer 1

Should an Agile shop be able to accommodate me or would it not be a good fit?

IMO it depends on the Team members and the overall work culture in the company, irrespective of them following Agile or Waterfall. If the team is not understanding enough, they would not accommodate you even if they follow Waterfall, and if it is in their work culture to be accommodative to unpredictable work offs, they definitely would. I have worked in both situations where employers or clients are very very accommodative while others are exactly the opposite. You can do research on the company and the work culture, but you never know who all you are going to work with, so there would be certain things out of your hands.

Anyway, hope this helped, best of luck! :)

Answer 2

Part of much agile practice (there are variations and competing techniques) ensures that the amount anyone bites off in one go is small; as a consequence if developers go missing then their peers should be up to date and able to step in, and there should be enough control in the project to descope or rearrange your work if necessary.

That said -- there is an ideal of agile and a reality of practice, so it probably depends more on the place of work than on any "agility" espoused.

Answer 3

How is your problem limited to Agile shops? Or even exacerbated by them? I really don't understand. You state that your problem is intermittent and unpredictable. That's going to be a burden on any employer. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's going to be more of a problem for other, more rigid methodologies as they will have a harder time rearranging resources.

The main thing you're looking for is a manager who's appreciative and understanding. Your immediate boss is going to be the one to deal with if there is a problem. And this has nothing to do with the development process in use.

Answer 4

Rather than avoid Agile shops (the prediction is something like 80% of shops will at least claim to be Agile in the next year or so) perhaps keep an eye out for those working Lean / Kanban. There, you have a shift from an emphasis on time-boxes to minimizing work-in-progress. Those shops will probably also be "Agile" but you'll see less Scrum.

You can contribute to getting features / fixes done when you're there, and if you're sick, either someone else can pick up where you left off or your piece will be left in progress while the team tackles other features. In Kanban, you just don't have that firm 2 week deliverable. You just have pressure not to have a bunch of stuff in flight at once.

I think the number of shops formally using this technique is small. There are a bunch of shops that are Agile, but don't really care that much about time boxing.