Bob's Blog
Bob is a prolific blogger who simply enjoys sharing his experiences with colleagues in the Agile Community. Topics revolve around Scrum, XP, Kanban, Project Management, Business Analysis, Testing, Leadership and General Musings.
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Agile Stories
My partner Josh Anderson and I just finished a Meta-Cast on the topic of self-directed teams. One of our listeners asked us to share our thoughts on handling agile team members who simply wanted to be “told what to do”.
On the surface, this doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. In fact, I’ll bet these folks are bright, capable and work very hard. They’re also probably “good people”. So if there is an issue with this in agile teams, what is it? And why would it be a problem?
I was working with a colleague the other day and we were talking about speakers for a possible local agile conference.
I brought up a few people that I respected in the national agile community and, almost to a person, they discounted them as being “the same old…same old” presenters. From their perspective, they were looking for more:
And I think I understood the point. We can certainly get repetitious in our industry. Following the same old pundits with the same old messages. But at the same time, something bothered me and for quite awhile…and I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Mike Cottmeyer is one of my favorite agile coaches and leaders within our community. When he worked for VersionOne years ago, I used to read his blogs fairly often. Now that he’s been out on his own with LeadingAgile, I don’t get the chance as often to experience his thoughts.
So I was pleased when I ran into a recent post by Mike that had the same title as this post. I read it with anticipation, and as with all of his writing, Mike made me stop and think a bit. Here’s a context snippet from Mike’s post:
I just registered for the Scaled Agile Framework, SAFe Program Consultant (SPC) class.
I’ll be taking the course April 22-25 in Boulder. One of the reasons I picked this class is that Dean Leffingwell, the creator and prime instigator of SAFe, is teaching it. Much as I did in 2004 when I took my CSM certification with Ken Schwaber, I want to get it “from the horses mouth” so to speak.
I’ve been sitting around far too long observing it from the sidelines or peripherally and feeling quite apprehensive about the implications that SAFe has across a variety of agile principles.
Another driver is that many of my coaching colleagues have taken this course and are recommending & leading SAFe initiatives. I respect them and their balanced judgment, so I want to approach the class with as few preconceptions as I can. I’ve long respected Dean for his work in RUP and software requirements, so I want to give it (and him) a fair shot.
My wife and I saw two movies over the holidays. One was The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and the second was The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Both were the second episodes in a three part series. I suspect both were shot at the same time as their concluding episodes as well.
No, this is not a movie review, although both of them were “reasonable” follow-ups to their opening episodes. But both also had a similarity—one that bugged both my wife and I very much.
Both of them left you (the audience, the customer) hanging at the end. And I’m not talking about a subtle ending that hinted at a future plot direction. I’m talking about an abrupt, no warning at all, CUT off of the movie in lieu of the next (and hopefully final) installment.
I want to share a story from a Galaxy Far, Far Away.
It’s been on my mind quite a bit of late, as I tell it in some of my agile classes. However, I’m unsure whether the students believe me or they glean the significance of the story. I usually share it to illustrate a key point around software requirements. I usually get LOTS of pushback in my classes surrounding the “goodness and need” for fully documented requirements in software projects.
And as I unfold the agile approach to requirements (user story based, conversational, acceptance-driven, intentionally incomplete, and did I say collaborative?) the class starts turning ashen-faced in disbelief. Particularly attendees who are Business Analysts, Project Managers, and Testers struggle with the essence of agile requirements.
So that being said, I thought I’d try telling it here by writing it down.
