Even those that developed and industrialised waterfall no longer believe it has value, and they still struggle with the tyranny of Taylorism.

While 81% of all development shops say that they are adopting agile, the reality is far from it; only 22% do short iterations, 16% have ordered backlogs, & 13% do retrospectives! They still lack feedback loops.

This talk will take a walk through history from 1890 through to the present and follow the rise and eventual fall of Waterfall in the very organisation that developed it; the US Military-Industrial Complex. From communities through the industrial revolution, mechanisation of the workforce, the first MBA's, the pursuit of hierarchical plan-driven solutions, and bureaucracy to the realisation of reality and the struggle to change.

Overview:

• 1880 - Social, Family, Community, Problem Solving
• 1890 - Industrial Revolution and mechanisation of the workforce
• 1906 - First MBA and enshrinement of the carrot and the stick
• 1920 - First ideas that people are different ridiculed
• 1950 - Sequential work adopted by US Military
• 1970 - Waterfall defigned and adopted
• 1993 - First Scrum Project
• 2001 - Agile Manifesto
• 2010 - Consultation on new DOD procurement rules
• 2013 - New Procurement rules mandating iterative delivery go live
• 2018 - Detecting Agile BS
• 2019 - USAF Memo
• Future - Social, Family, Community, Problem Solving