Category: doa

  • Flatulent agile

    Flatulent agile

    Recipes I’ve been working with a number of larger, older organisations recently and it has really brought home to me the difference between the promise of a nimble, responsive teams and the reality of a sluggish, bureaucratic behemoth. Then, looking back over years of writings, posts, promises and dreams I see frequent repetitions of the phrase…

  • Always Be Coding

    Always Be Coding

    Last night I finally got around to watching Erik Meijer’s keynote from last year’s Reaktor conference. It was called “One Hacker Way” and, while it contains much that is apocryphal – or at least wildly inaccurate – it scores over the older, more pedestrian type of keynote in two important ways: first it is highly contentious,…

  • The context and definition challenge

    The context and definition challenge

    We’re very good at rationalising. Almost any statement can be justified by the retroactive application of the twin constraints of “context” and “definition.” As an example, Chris Matts (@papachrismatts) talked about the “death of Agile” in a recent blog post of his, and I took issue with that. We talked about it briefly at a…

  • Value by association

    Value by association

    Do you care what label is on your shirt? Or your car? Or your laptop? I bet you do, but why? Is there something substantive underneath the fashion-victim facade or is it just some sort of post-modern tribalism? A few of us have been debating the death (or otherwise) of agile, and it seems to…

  • Death of agile – Intro

    Death of agile – Intro

    Welcome to the “Death of agile” series. Most of these posts take the form of open letters to members of the community, but this introductory post sets the stage and outlines my understanding of what agile is, and where it fits into the pantheon of software development methods. See also: Open letter to Dan North…

  • Gabriel Steinhardt – an open letter

    Gabriel Steinhardt – an open letter

    Welcome to another post in my “Death of agile” series. This post is an open letter to Gabriel Steinhardt, a Product Management expert from Blackblot. See also: Death of agile Open letter to Dan North Open letter to Chris Matts Dear Gabriel, In your keynote at Agile On The Beach and your subsequent blog post…

  • Dan North – an open letter

    Dan North – an open letter

    Welcome to another post in my “Death of agile” series. This post is an open letter to Dan North, the ‘father’ of BDD. See also: Death of agile Open letter to Chris Matts Open letter to Gabriel Steinhardt Dear Dan, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about some of your recent conference keynotes, specifically…