[SIGCIS-Members] [Ext] Re: CfP: „Flexibility“ and „Agility“ Strategies, Practices, and Ambivalences of a Key Concept since the 1980s

Mon Mar 28 13:54:37 PDT 2022

Seconding Dave’s thoughts here, and I wanted to note that Prof. Miriam
Posner of UCLA (who may not be on this list) has a new piece coming out
about this in an upcoming LOGIC issue. It’s titled “Agile and the Long
Crisis of Software.”

Best,
MH
______________________
Mar Hicks, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History of Technology
Humanities Department
Illinois Institute of Technology
marhicks.com

*Programmed Inequality
<https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/programmed-inequality>: How Britain
Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing *(2017)
*Your Computer Is On Fire
<https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/your-computer-fire> * (2021)

On Mar 26, 2022, at 6:57 PM, Dave Foster <dwfoster1 at outlook.com> wrote:

Luke

Scrum and agile are absolutely new forms of Taylorism. This was not
original intent but it is what they have become in the corporate world, a
new universal program management religion that has gone far beyond software
development purposes. In school we studied the oldies of Gantt and PERT,
then in my working experience I have gone through various fashion waves
spanning TQM, Earned Value, Lean/Six Sigma, etc. crazes during their
respective heydays and most recently scrum/agile. We have spent a lot of
time over the years and continue to spend a good deal of planning time
setting up our stories, features, epics, etc. and working the plan.
Software development has always been a sub-task so I don't have any direct
experience with the comparative value on those types of projects - I've
always worked in higher levels of overall systems development where, IMO, a
waterfall or whatever is as good as anything else, thought this is heresy
in the scrum/agile. I think it is the organizational pressure to institute
a consistent framework, which is certainly a fair objective. But to me, the
framework has never made any difference - we are fundamentally tracking
progress and dollars. Note, my experience has been on technical development
projects in the Defense Dept and in private sector consulting.

I don't have any specific references in mind. I think that you may find
that the primary challenges to the way of scrum & agile come from outside
the software development world where, nevertheless, the concepts have been
enthusiastically adopted and adapted.

Best/Dave
Texas Tech University (PhD student) and Accenture AI
------------------------------
*From:* Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of Luke
Fernandez <luke.fernandez at gmail.com>
*Sent:* Saturday, March 26, 2022 12:44
*To:* Schmitt, Martin <martin.schmitt at tu-darmstadt.de>
*Cc:* Sigcis <members at sigcis.org>
*Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] CfP: „Flexibility“ and „Agility“
Strategies, Practices, and Ambivalences of a Key Concept since the 1980s

What an interesting conference. And what interesting questions it poses!
For example, this one on page 5 of the CFP:

"How did agile software development shape the concepts of work and
employment?"

If anyone from this listserv has some cites that speak to this question I'd
be psyched if you shared a few.

I make no claims to know anything about this subject apart from recently
finishing Cal Newport's *A World Without Email *where he touches on these
concerns.  Among other things, Newport wishes for a productivity revolution
in knowledge work.  And he thinks that it might happen if we replace email
with some of the productivity tools and techniques that are used in
software development like kanban boards and scrum and agile work
processes.  He insists that this can happen without knowledge work
suffering the same forms of
regimentation/acceleration/dehumanization/surveillance that happened to
many forms of manual labor with the implementation of Taylorism and Fordism
(cf. page 119).  But how plausible are Newport's claims?  Are scrum and
agile new forms of Taylorism?  Or are they something altogether different?
Is it even helpful to view these techniques through the lens of Taylorism?

Best,

Luke Fernandez
Weber State University

On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 8:23 AM Schmitt, Martin <
martin.schmitt at tu-darmstadt.de> wrote:

Dear SIGCIS,

We will host a conference on „Flexibility“ and „Agility“: Strategies,
Practices, and Ambivalences of a Key Concept since the 1980s (together with
Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF),
Helmut-Schmidt-University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg
(HSU), SPP 2267 “The Digitalization of Working Worlds. Conceptualising and
Capturing a Systemic Transformation.“). Keynote speaker is Richard Sennett.
Date: 17/18 November 2022
Location: Darmstadt
You will find the call for paper here(
https://www.geschichte.tu-darmstadt.de/flexibility
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.geschichte.tu-darmstadt.de/flexibility__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!7sGpzhf1Qw30f4UTimKQ8Tk8T0a9Y0f9OQw6SCuqmqL6IgPuZvKwlO5JU4M29uo$>).
Please submit your proposed papers by 30 May 2022.

For the SIGCIS community, especially the parts on agility/software
programing and digital automation are the most interesting one.

Best
Martin

Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter | Post-Doc | digital enthusiast

Technische Universität Darmstadt
Institut für Geschichte
Fachgebiet Technikgeschichte

Mail: martin.schmitt at tu-darmstadt.de
Tel: +49  6151-16-57327
http://www.computerisierung.com
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.computerisierung.com__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!7sGpzhf1Qw30f4UTimKQ8Tk8T0a9Y0f9OQw6SCuqmqL6IgPuZvKwlO5JphCCEh4$>

&

Assoziierter Wissenschaftler
LEIBNIZ-ZENTRUM FÜR ZEITHISTORISCHE FORSCHUNG | POTSDAM

Vice Chair IFIP WG 9.7 „History of computing“

Zuletzt erschienen: *Die Digitalisierung der Kreditwirtschaft*. Computereinsatz
in den Sparkassen der Bundesrepublik und der DDR 1957-1991, Göttingen:
Wallstein-Verlag 2021,
https://www.wallstein-verlag.de/9783835333710-die-digitalisierung-der-kreditwirtschaft.html
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.wallstein-verlag.de/9783835333710-die-digitalisierung-der-kreditwirtschaft.html__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!7sGpzhf1Qw30f4UTimKQ8Tk8T0a9Y0f9OQw6SCuqmqL6IgPuZvKwlO5JLr9b4Jw$>

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