by on June 10, 2008 in Agile

Minimally Agile

Recently I had a conversation with a long time friend that made me realize that in my writing and conversation I often come across as a fanatic. Oppppsssss. Time for me to hit the big red reset button. I’m opinionated and passionate but I also believe that you can do good work even if your not push agile limits. There are two things that I’m dogmatic about:

  1. Quality – I can’t stand shit, especially shit code.
  2. Accuracy – I hate mis-information and will pounce on it even when I should know better.

In any case I thought it might help put my core beliefs on the table. If you are working in small achievable chunks and are continuously improving you are Agile. On the other hand you be doing all of the Scrum Practices (Short Iterations, Planning Meeting, Daily Standup, etc.) but are not making any ongoing changes, then you’re not Agile.

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  3. Can Agile methods be applied outside software development? Join the discussion
  4. Agile Retrospectives

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  • Pete

    Its mostly garbage anyway, invented by ‘developers’ in positions of management, who can’t code for shit, pushing the blame back on those that can.

    If outcomes aren’t achieved it’s because the coders weren’t agile enough – yeah right!

    Lots of stupid meetings that throw actual developer productivity out the window.

  • http://www.mayford.ca Dave Rooney

    Honestly, Mark, to me you don’t come across as fanatical! ‘Course, maybe that’s because I’m dogmatic about the same things as you. ;)

    I posted a blog entry a while back called Agile Circa 1988 (http://agileartisan.blogspot.com/2006/02/agile-circa-1988.html) about a team I worked with from 1992-1998. Prior to a forced marriage with a large, monolithic gov’t department, that group was as Agile as any I’ve seen. I worked with a group more recently that started with agile practices, but devolved over time and is now pretty well back to classic waterfall, albeit with 4 month releases.

  • Karl Brumund

    Mark,
    You’ve _always_ been a fanatic. Isn’t that why we love you?

    Or not, depending on our point of view, remembering the Star Wars quote (http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2009/01/do-you-suspect-you-have-a-less-than-productive-person-on-your-team.html)

    …karl