What does Agile Methodology really mean @ my-Company?

Agile Methodology is supposed to bring in productive work among associates. In a particular Onsite-Offshore (Can be Client Customer as well) model, everyone working in the team sums up the work he/she has done during the day/week. To be productive to a very extreme level, the update is to be given over the phone every day. The updates can be given by the way of documentation as well.

I have been using the word "productive" quite some times now, what does this really mean? A work is considered productive, only if it has a visible change. This visible change has to be seen in the work we do, the visible change basically means changes in the project documents or the project solution(code). All the thinking that one does would not be considered as productive work. So if a particular implementation or design requires a lot of thinking or a day's research, this is considered as no work done.

What impact would this have on the employees?
Agile Methodology works on the principle of peer pressure. Every employee should have his list of productive items for the day to update by the end of the day. So if there are 10 associates working on the project, everyone should have enough updates to be mentioned in the call. Every time your peer has more updates to give, the more will you have to work to exceed his update list. This way of competition goes on to such an extent that, finally there is no life in you to work.

I personally feel Agile Methodology is one of the worst ways to define productive work. It reduces the quality of the work that is being done as the only goal of an employee would be to get maximum number of items on his list for the day. Using peer pressure tactics by the employer in the work environment, brings down the efficiency of work being done. This is equivalent to direct comparison of one associate's work with the other. So plz guys, just stop using this methodology.

Am I Expensive?

The Sinusoidal wave for the demand of the IT professionals is ever scary. The Ups & Downs of the Information Technology industry gets the heart & soul agitated of every person.

Seated in a corner of the cubicle and working on applications which run world’s business and seeing the outside world only through the 15'' screen, Wiki is all I speak about.

Being a cheap labor, the ability to work for longer duration, excellent English speaking capabilities and the ability to work more with minimal complaints is what makes people like me an attractive option for the IT companies.

Let me move down to a narrower scale of measurement of my work.

My Salary is Rs.20K per month. Mind you guys this is the Gross(CTC).

I work a minimum of 20 days a month and work on an average 10 hours a day. So I work a minimum of 200 hours a month.

Applying simple math, So what does this come up to?

Rs.100 per hour equivalent to $2.5 an hour.

Though I am being paid this less, there is always a fear of loosing the job during recession.

A job cut is done to cut costs, but always the performance is given as a reason.


Having an experience of greater than 1.5 years, getting $2.5 an hour, being in the fear of loosing my job during US recession, I always end up asking myself, "Am I Expensive?"


Assumptions:
1 USD = 40 INR (US $1 = Indian Rs.40)

Facts:
The electricity consumption, water consumption etc are not considered as an employee across countries would use these.