Agile That Doesn’t Suck Pt 2/2

Let’s assume the worst has already happened. Your team is burnt out. The process is bloated. “Agile” is a word people flinch at. The retros are performative, the standups are robotic, and the burndown chart might as well be a mood ring. Good news: you’re not alone. Better news: you don’t have to stay stuck. Step One: Stop Pretending The first fix is brutally simple—stop doing Agile theater. Scrum isn’t working for your team? Stop doing Scrum. The world will not end. The Product Owner will survive. Nobody gets a medal for following the process if the software is garbage and the team hates their job. ...

June 27, 2025 · 4 min · The Cynical Developer

Agile Was Never Your Problem Pt 1/2

Agile isn’t your problem. Agile is dead. Long live Agile. Every few years, someone revives the corpse, dresses it up in a new three-letter acronym, and wheels it around the office like it’s going to save your team. Again. This time it’s “SAFe.” Last time it was “Spotify Model.” Before that, it was Scrum with capital-S and a two-day certification course. You sit through the same slides. Someone renames standup to “daily sync.” Jira gets a new plugin. Leadership announces this will bring “clarity and velocity.” ...

June 26, 2025 · 4 min · The Cynical Developer

Speaking & Consulting

Here’s how not to rewrite your system. Again. What I Actually Do (When I’m Not Yelling at Legacy Code) I’ve spent 20 years in the trenches of enterprise Java, EJB nightmares, and leadership roles trying to keep developer teams sane and systems stable. These days, I help teams modernize without melting down, fix processes that quietly ruin morale, and build software that won’t collapse under its own cleverness. ...

May 27, 2025 · 2 min · The Cynical Developer