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by Jonathan Crossland.
Original Post: Are you Also an Agile Expert?
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You can't move to the left or to the right, without bumping into an "Agile Expert". Everything has become painted with the g-l-o-r-y of "being Agile" and "focused" on the business need. smungle, bungle, jungle.
The majority of managers, teams and clients who say they are Agile, are basically using the term, because its become a convenient truth. It is good for business. It is a good pick up line.
"Hey honey, I am Agile."
"Your place or mine"
I am not saying everyone, but the amount of people who are signed up and preaching their Agile ways, while missing a deadline, not writing unit tests, frowning when a client objects to a particular thing. well..
I hear some also using the same Agilese language to counter the Agile methods.
You know the ones who say. All I think that matters, "is delivery the software to the client", not ____ or ____. Yes we all want to deliver to the client, we all want to write good software that can deal with change, but the actual process, the actual mentality for doing so, is "hard".
If you think running a business, a project and a team, satisfying the client, the developers and other interests, on time, within budget is easy because you "put customers first", or follow a mantra, then you are probably not entirely there.
Often the more experience you have, the more you realize how little you know and understand. But after a few years, say 4 or 5, I have found that most developers seem to go to Guru mode. Yes, its beginner, developer, guru in 5 years. If I sound cynical. I am... You see its taken a lot of experience to understand what works and what doesn't. It takes a lot of experience to learn why something should be done a certain way.
I lot of really smart people are really concerned with how things are going in our industry. Its not your project, or mine thats important. It is actually all projects, across the world now. Most users, think that programmers are not really in tune with whats really useful for them. Most users, quietly think that we are a little too geekyand not all that practical. I did a survey a few years back, while running my ex-software-house, and the results came back that most thought developers lacked common sense.
Whether you agree or not, it is a viewpoint. Now those very smart people are trying to do a few things for us and the IT sector as a whole. They are trying to give credibility to the semi-artform, we call programming. They are trying to shape the software industry so we catch up to engineering, and perhaps move ahead of it. they are trying to get thoughts adopted that shape the way the systems work. How can we create the future software the world needs?, if the last project you were involved with was so buggy and most of us are currently on, or were on a project than ran late.?
It is hard satisfying customers and users at the same time. It is a difficult road to walk, and software is increasingly more important with every line thats written.
Agile, was created to try and counter the weight of burden we had/have. It was created to break the chain of Waterfall Models, software centric, inward focused, software vanity that was going on. Agile was created as a statement of intent. "Hey, lets actually write the software before documents, lets listen and deal with people and what they need, before we focus on UML, lets collaborate with our clients, build a team, before we think about functional specs equates to dollars, and lets rather respond to change, when we think of it, when its needed and when it happens, rather than creating a massive set of documentation constraints, and some "master plan".
At this point, please feel free read the Agile Manifesto. Agile is not a buzz word, its supposed to be a way of thinking and a way of doing.
Now, if you have any thoughts, please write me. I would love to hear your views.
Also remember, Kent Beck, one of the original 17 signatatories, of Agile Manifesto, will be speaking with me and available on Friday. To subscribe to podcast, use the TalkWare subscription icon on my website.
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