Errands this morning. Job boards and calls this afternoon.

At Styx concert

Phone calls this morning and going to a movie with the family this
afternoon.

At WIND this morning. Phone calls this afternoon.

Attending Agile Boston with Greg Smith tonight.

Back to phone calls and searching the boards

Happy Father's Day.

Ken's session last night was great. Phone calls today.

Going to Agile Bazaar tonight. Ken Schwaber presenting

At the WIND meeting this morning.

Heading to Boston SPIN tonight.

Networking today. 5 people to followup with.

Enjoying a 3 game Red Sox series in Philadelphia with my stepson

Focusing on my target compnay list today

Getting ready for my interview today.

Dan

Dan

Getting ready for a yard sale tomorrow

Going to the Agile Bazaar where Nancy V. is presenting ""A Jet Engine On

I have started a part-time contract as an Agile Coach for a local company.

Back on the hunt for my next exciting position.

At the WIND networking meeting.

Networking with ex-Kronites this morning.

Time for Chuck, Heroes, Medium, with Big Bang Theory on TiVo.

"Spring Awakening" was a powerful play with great music. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now the Sox.

Going out with my wife on this lovely day and then seeing "Spring Awakening"
at PPAC.

Having lunch with my Mom then going to watch the Red Sox. Great game last night.

Back to networking to find my next exciting position. I am still very interested in Intuit so any help is appreciated.

I am heading to Ken Schwaber's Scrumbut Workshop this morning.

About to do some networking. If you have a contact at Intuit, please let me know.

getting ready to go to Boston SPIN. Johanna Rothman is leading the roundtable.

Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools

“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” is the first value proposition of The Manifesto for Agile Software Development. What exactly does that mean? In many organizations, process conformance, standardized ALM tools, and PMOs have become the norm. They all seem to try standardizing the practices to improve quality and demonstrate maturity, seemingly at the expense of individuality and creativity. Many of these programs seem to lose sight of the real purpose of the enterprise, to product products that customers are willing to pay for. Are customers willing to pay for a functional spec? A design spec? Not usually. One organization I visited is starting a new process and quality group. Their charter is to write down and standardize all their processes with the goal of achieving CMMi Level 3 in three years. I asked them what the business goals were, and the VP said it is to get to level 3. I was expecting goals like improve productivity, reduce defects, or increase customer satisfaction. I did not get any of them.

Now agilists can suffer from this, too. I have seen them searching for the perfect agile tool, documenting every step of their agile practices, auditing and grading the results. Even the Nokia test can be misused as a metric to setup incentive bonuses.

So what does that line really mean? I think that we are trying to get people talking to each other. Any tool that facilitates that is useful. That is why simple tools like index cards, sticky notes, markers and flipcharts work so well. It encourages interactions between team members. One company decided that the best training to bring in was not TDD or Scrum training but collaboration training. By teaching ScrumMasters and Product Owners how to facilitate meetings, how to use different techniques and tools to reach consensus, and to work through conflict the leaders at this company knew they were living up to that first line – collaboration and talking over standards and compliance; “Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools.”

Why Practical Agile?

In this blog, I will be sharing my thoughts on how Agile can work in a practical way, meaning in real life situations. What makes me qualified to do that? Well, they are my thoughts that I am sharing, so I guess that could be enough. A more relevant answer is I have been in the software product development business for over 20 years as a developer, manager, and coach. I have used all kinds of software process models: ad hoc, waterfall, V model, Spiral, and Agile methods like FDD, XP, and Scrum; many of these in both informal and very formal ways. I have seen projects succeed and fail with all these models. None of them is perfect. None of them provides the “silver bullet”.

What I have come to learn and value is that teams of highly motivated and talented individuals, working well together, provides the highest probability of delivering successful projects. So rather than focusing on practices, processes, templates, documents, etc., an organization should value creating an environment where the conditions support collaboration, innovation, excitement, and achievement.

That leads me to why I call this blog “Practical Agile”. I believe that the ideals expressed in the Agile Manifesto and its Principles create such an environment. That doctrine does not cite any specific practices or processes, just values. Each organization wanting to achieve excellent results should adopt these principles and then adapt the various practices that work for them. That is practical agile.

I said earlier that I have seen successful non-agile projects. Many of them do exist. Nevertheless, every truly successful one that I have seen exhibited solid teamwork, a strong sense of purpose and a focus on quality and pride. They adapted the organizational process so that at least it did not get in their way. I contend that agile practices support that process.

Over the next several entries, I will explore these agile principles, and how I have seen them implemented in real-life teams. Stay tuned…