Skip to main content

Agile Purity

In 1998, Sun famously accused Microsoft of attempting "to kill cross-platform Java and grow the polluted Java market," a dispute which was settled out of court with Microsoft paying Sun $2B in damages.  About ten years later, in 2009, a scuffle ensued between Jeff Sutherland, original designer of Scrum, and the Scrum Alliance, which had begun issuing the "Certified Scrum Master" credential based on an outdated version of the Scrum guide.  Sutherland affirmed that "pure scrum" was defined and owned by himself and Ken Schwaber, even though the Alliance was issuing the certifications.

From http://www.sciencefix.com
The attractive paradox in both cases is that a single party (Sun or Sutherland) claims to have cornered the market on NOT cornering the market (universal software language/universal software development methodology).  But despite the wonderful symmetry of the apparent paradox, in both cases, actual revenue dollars were attached to the outcome of the debate.  As is so often the case, "pure" theory turns out to have been sheeps' clothing around an economic wolf securing net present value.

It's good to keep this in mind the next time someone accuses you of doing something that's "not agile."  "Oh," your new colleague says with a twisted lip, "You guys do PLANNING??  THAT's not agile!"  Or "Get away from me, you command-and-control fascist!" your Organizational Change Management Team Lead may shriek in panic as you suggest reconciling the story points values across two teams to allow for consistent reporting for the whole program.  Then she may attempt to roll you up in a handy burndown chart from one of the teams and throw you down the laundry chute.  There's an amazing amount of dogma in the supposedly freewheeling world of agile software development.

Let's just stop and take a deep breath for a moment.  Is the important thing to "be agile?"  Or is the important thing to secure your company's revenue with a continuous stream of high-quality software that meets the needs of your market?  Do not let the people in the brightly colored "Agile 2011 Conference:  Return to Snowbird" t-shirts distract you from what really matters:  delivering business value.  Do you want the shirt or do you want the satisfaction of a job well done?

Comments

  1. lizzySeptember 9, 2011 at 5:00 PM

    Extremely well said. It's important that we utilize the practices which point us to putting the people component as part of the mix and communication on a consistent basis rather than just a huge document. However at no point can we throw away good business management 101. If you can't quantify value and consistently measure it....mmh .....

    Business is ultimately about making money, or saving money so that money can be allocated someplace else to sustain or generate further earnings. So every activity within a business must be able map back to the basic core.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Elena YatzeckSeptember 9, 2011 at 6:30 PM

    Thanks, Lizzy! You are totally right.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kerry BuckleySeptember 10, 2011 at 2:44 AM

    I agree with your main point, but a small piece of pedantry: I think you mean Scrum Alliance, not Agile Alliance. I can't see the latter giving out Scrum Master certifications, given their views on the subject.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Elena YatzeckSeptember 10, 2011 at 10:22 AM

    Yikes you are right! Apologies!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Elena YatzeckSeptember 10, 2011 at 10:25 AM

    Fixed. Thanks so much again.

    ReplyDelete
  6. navaneedhMarch 9, 2012 at 11:04 PM

    I actually enjoyed reading through this posting.Many thanks.


    Agile Software Development with Scrum - cPrime

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Do You Vote Someone Off of Your Agile Team?

One of the conundrums of agile conversion is that although you are ordered by management to "self-organize," you don't get to pick your own team.  You may not have pictured it this way, but your agile team members are going to be the same people you worked with before, when you were all doing waterfall!   I know I wasn't picturing it that way for my first agile team, so I thought I should warn you.  (I thought I was going to get between six and eight original Agile Manifesto signers.  That didn't happen.). Why "warn" you (as opposed to "reassure" you, say)?  Because the agile process is going to reveal every wart, mole, quirk, goiter, and flatulence issue on the team within a few hours.  In the old days, you could all be eccentric or even unpleasant in your own cube, communicating only by document, wiki, email, and, in extreme situations, by phone.  Now you are suddenly forced to interact in real time, perhaps in person, with written messag...
2 comments
Read more

A Corporate Agile 10-point Checklist

I'm pretty sure my few remaining friends in the "small, collocated team agile" community are going to desert me after this, but I actually have a checklist of 10 things to think about if you're a product owner at a big company thinking of trying out some agile today.  Some of these might even apply to you if you're in a smaller place.  So at the risk of inciting an anti-checklist riot (I'm sorry, Pez!), I am putting this out there in case it is helpful to someone else. From http://www.yogawithjohn.com/tag/yoga-class/ Here's what you should think about: 1.        Your staffing pattern.  A full agile project requires that you have the full team engaged for the whole duration of the project at the right ratios.  So as you provision the project, check to see whether you can arrange this staffing pattern.  If not, you will encounter risks because of missing people.  Concretely it means that: a.    ...
10 comments
Read more

Requirements Traceability in Agile Software Development

One of the grim proving grounds for the would-be agile business analyst (henceforth "WBABA")  is the "traceability conversation."  Eventually, you will have to have one.  You may have seen one already.  If you haven't, you may want to half-avert your eyes as you read further.  It gets a little brutal.  But if you close them all the way, you can't read. From:  http://www.highestfive.com/mind/how-to-perform-a-successful-interrogation/ Dialogue: WBABA :   ...so in summary, we complete analysis on each story card, and then we support the developers as they build it that same iteration! Corporate Standards Guy:   but how do you do traceability in agile?  You have to have traceability.  It's broadly recognized as an important factor in building rigorous software systems. These software systems permeate our society and we must entrust them with lives of everyday people on a daily basis. [The last two sentences are an actu...
6 comments
Read more