Scepticism is a virtue
At least in part because of my relentless evangelism we're going to be working harder on being agile around here. Or at least learning more about the methodology and trying it on more projects. Which means it's time to start working out where this could go wrong.
This post from Jason Yip provides a good starting point. For me the thought that comes through strongest reading this material is that some agile practitioners are ceasing to be pragmatic. Indeed they've become very dogmatic (they have, I've met them).
I'm currently reading 'Agile Estimating and Planning' by Mike Cohn, which has this to say in one of it's forwards (by Jim Highsmith) "in reality you are Agile, Extreme or otherwise when you know enough about the practices to adapt them to the reality of your own specific situation" , and that seems like a good way of looking at any methodology. If you understand it, you'll recognise it's limitations, and know when it's time to look for something else.
Comments
It would be easy for me to feel frustrated and to oppose Martin in moving toward Agile simply because I know so little about it, and have difficulty creating time to learn, but I'm grateful that somebody around me can make the time to keep abrest of such things, keep me informed while they're at it and even better to look out for danger signs along the way rather than blindly following the crowd.
I'm interested to see where this takes us, opposing change just because I'm fearful of what I don't know won't help anybody, but my gut reaction for whatever reason is to oppose, at least some aspects of, Agile. On the flip side there are definitely parts of Agile that I really like and think are suited to the needs of Greenpeace, it's being sold something I dislike, not the thing itself ;-)
This is a very different approach than the UK office seem to be taking, theirs being a much more formalised approach. Perhaps I'm old school but having lots of documentation output and formal decision making processes feels like home to me and that's just not Agile, but looking around me at Greenpeace International I can't help feeling that Agile is more suited to the rapidly evolving needs of the people around me.
This is definitely a war between heart and mind, and I think I'm glad my mind is on the side of Agile - I'm skeptical that I'm drawn towards the more traditional approaches or even no approach because those are (more) known to me and are the greener grass easy way out options.
Posted by: Ximon Eighteen | June 16, 2006 12:33 AM
I figure people can be pragmatic (act like an engineer) and/or scientific (idealistic?) (act like a scientist). The problem I have is if people become pseudo-scientific.
Posted by: Jason Yip | June 24, 2006 12:30 AM