"Agile is fun, waterfall is not fun" ? Meh...

I've got this comment for one of my posts: "Agile is fun, Waterfall is not fun". This was such as terrific comment that I just had to respond with a post! It is terrific because: it is so wrong and so common at the same time!! It is marvelous!!!

Many people think that agile is fun, while waterfall has a reputation of previous century technology. All the cool kids are doing agile. Old timers are doing waterfall. Boooooring. 

What do you want to be? Don't answer, this is not a real question. The real question though: Is Agile really more fun than Waterfall? 

All things can be proved with fabricated example, so bare with me.  

You are looking for a job and have two options. "CoolGuys" company is developing messenger application for mobile. They have no customers, the idea is rather stupid in 2014, but they are working in Scrum. They have a certified Scrum master, stand-up daily meetings, estimation poker and all the Scrum stuff. Your second option is with "JustHereToWork" company. Most of the development team is over 35 (read old timers). Most of them are smart, apart from a few guys who are extremely smart. I mean Turing award or world-wide name smart. They have a great idea for a product, that is already becoming a major hit and they have the ability to make it happen. They also work in waterfall. Which company is more fun to work at? I would say the second. 

Let's say that the product is important and is a large part of a "fun" at work. What else?

Continuing with the example, you find a couple of friends that have worked at each of those companies and call them. Bill, the guy that worked at "CoolGuys", says that behind the "we are cool guys having fun" facade, the interpersonal relationships are very bad there. People don't help one to another and most of them don't really like one another. Even though the company organizes pizza evenings and game nights, the guys still hate one another guts and fighting over everything. Then you call the second friend, Joe, that worked in "JustHereToWork" company. The guy moved to another city and thus, had to leave the work place. For more than an hour he talked about the great guys at his previous company and how they have met at bar or on a weekend. They are still friends and even some folks has come to visit him in his new home. Hmmmmm. 

So, "fun" is more related to people than to development method. What else?

You call Bill once more, as you think that maybe the interpersonal problems were caused by Bill's personality. After all, you are such a great girl/guy, for sure you will get along with all the folks there. Bill explains to you that even though he had 10 years of experience working at ICQ/MSN messenger/Yahoo messenger and bunch of other programs, still his responsibility at the company was very limited. This is not only him, as all other guys had to go through loops to get any code into a product. This is even before the company have customers. Now, this is a bummer, as you like having a lot of stuff to work on. You call Joe to check the situation at "JustHereToWork" company. For sure, with all the smart guys there Joe was in charge of a single class method. Surprisingly, Joe tells you that he was a master of his domain. He has a lot of responsibilities there and was the final authority in a number of things. 

OK. Responsibility is another "fun" thing at work. Is there anything else?

When you go to sleep, you suddenly remember how Bill complained about being stuck at the same place and nowhere to advance. Apparently his boss didn't trust anyone and the company executives didn't think that that employees development is a good thing. Actually, they didn't think about it at all. Next day you call Joe and ask him about development path in his previous company. What a mistake that was... Joe talked for half an hour without stopping about different options, mentioned discussions with his manager and company policy. His final words were: "you only have to choose what you want to do!" 

This is not a fun thing to be stuck at one place, so lets add development plan to something that is fun at work. Anything else?

Is it fun to work on "yet another messenger"? Is it fun to work on a product that will be forgotten sooner than the company ships third version? Isn't it more fun to work on something that changes the world? If it changes the world for a better, this is even more fun! 

Impact is (yet) another item on my list of fun things. I don't know about you, but I want to change the world with my work. This is what I call fun. 

Is there anything else? Yep. Is development process part of the list? Nope.