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 couple of conferences and he explained why it made sense to him:
– context: “Agile” as a set of recipes, not values (c.f. Scrum, SAFe, DAD and accompanying certifications)
– definition: “Dead” means devalued through repeatedly over-promising and under-delivering
I still don’t think that agile has died, and neither does Chris in the general sense, but given the specific circumstances of his post the statement makes sense. But it took me time and effort to gain that understanding – time and effort that someone looking for a reference to support their view might not invest.
Neil Killick (@neil_killick) makes a good point that we often use controversy to stimulate debate, so should we care that our words can be misinterpreted, or quoted out of context? I think the answer is sometimes. Influential members of any community should consider carefully how the constituency that they are addressing might (mis)interpret their statements. No matter how much you may hope that people will think for themselves, the pronouncements of “thought leaders” carry a weight that cannot be ignored.
Misinterpretation of the written word is all too common, however. The “Three Amigos” meeting at the heart of Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) emphasises the need to have frequent, open, high bandwidth collaboration between technical and non-technical participants for just this reason. The differing perspectives of the participants challenge the implicit assumptions of the others.
If you make strong assertions in your tweets, posts or talks please consider your audience. If you have the space, we would all be well served if you made the context and definitions you have assumed as your constraints clear. And expect to be challenged – that’s what it’s all about.
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