No, I get it. You’ve been clear about this a number of times. I’ve composed responses but each time I end-up throwing them away because they sound like I’m being combative.
Well, here goes. The current approach to the project you are pitching produces negative incentives. Think about it this way:
Hi Joe, I’d like to built my own custom spec home in order to save money. But, I don’t want to actually have any part in building it because I don’t have the experience in building homes. I would rather oversee the construction and pick-out the appliances. I need to find some carpenters that’ll do that. This needs to be done on their off-time and without compensation. Oh, and they must be available to help my friends build their home, too. Because, you know, it’s easy and it’ll be fun for them. Oh, and could someone point out some architectural plans that they’ll modify then give to me?
Believe it or not, this kind-of thing occurs rather regularly in real life business.
Hey engineer, I have this great idea. I’ll be the CEO and you can do the work of building it. I’ll own the company and direct your work and, in return, you’ll get some stock options which will be worth bazillions (in some fantasy future). Sound good?
Pitching it in this way, personally, causes my ears to ring. Don’t take what I’ve said in the wrong way, the idea to open-source useful stuff is fantastic and laudable. But, there is likely a more equitable/sharing way to go about this. I can help with your goal but it will need to start with a thorough discussion in PM first.
It’s not really a “new” guy sucks, it’s more of a curmudgeon’s look at how these folk are setting themselves up for abuse and how the product of such machinations is generally subpar. The new guy though, who hasn’t tried the beer, is rah-rah about the cool-aid to their own detriment. They are unable to make the big picture / sound engineering connection because their pool of knowledge and experience is purposefully limited. But, they are all rah-rah because they think the manifesto of Agile software development is intended to help them in their efforts and careers as engineers.
It is not for them (in practice). They are being manipulated. FYI, agile came about around the same time frame that ethically challenged psychologists were deployed in process development in order to manipulate small groups of people. Coincidence? We now have some of the same folk who created the manifesto in the first place backing away from their own creation. Because, it’s been subverted.
The advantages of “business” centric Agile is a compliant workforce working to implement requirements and business goals that have the transparency of a velvet cloak, the ability to firewall the value creators, commoditize, demean, and devalue the engineering community, produce and release product fragments with no-say or sign-off from the engineering staff, and the ability to dictate schedules and engineering methodologies.
When things fail in the customers hands, it is often accompanied with shocked expression (after being blamed) across the engineering staff that, in many instances, weren’t even aware that a customer has received their “unfinished” and “constantly evolving” work product.
A rather public example of how this works is the VW emissions scandal. Who did they instantly blame, here.
A decent summary by this person from 2015 (it has gotten worse since then), Why “Agile” and especially Scrum are terrible – Michael O. Church