{"id":161,"date":"2023-04-12T19:46:31","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T19:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/?p=161"},"modified":"2023-04-12T19:46:31","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T19:46:31","slug":"agile-development-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/2023\/04\/12\/agile-development-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Agile Development #1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>About 15 years ago, I was lucky enough to be the architect on a major project for a big financial services customer; re-imagining their Human Capital Management platform.  It was my dream job &#8211; a competent team; I understood the brief; awesome sponsor; realistic deadlines; challenging requirements; and lots of learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We followed a traditional waterfall delivery model.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>You tell us the specification.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We respond in writing with what we&#8217;ll do.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We develop.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You test based on your specification.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You sign off if the software does what you specified.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I thought the team did an amazing job.  Bizarrely, we were ready a month ahead of schedule.  Which afforded me time to chat to the customer about quality \/ their experience \/ their expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cough cough<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Turned out the customer was (a) confused about what they were getting; (b) frustrated at being confused and (c) not very happy in some cases with how they got what they thought they wanted.  (I&#8217;ve written previously about this&#8230; <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/2023\/04\/12\/beware-the-monkeys-paw\/\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/2023\/04\/12\/beware-the-monkeys-paw\/\" target=\"_blank\">here&#8230;<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>But, this afforded me 3 weeks to investigate better ways of working.  And I stumbled upon&#8230; agile&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mind = blown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After 10+ years of waterfall, I was literally blown away that there was another way of working.  But&#8230; for those of you that have always worked in an agile \/ scrum manner&#8230; without being rude&#8230; you need to have seen the bad side, to appreciate the good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Exhibit 1:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"445\" height=\"334\" src=\"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Agile1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-162\" srcset=\"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Agile1.jpg 445w, https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Agile1-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 445px) 100vw, 445px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Take a minute to read this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now read it again.  But ask yourself &#8211; in your environment &#8211; are you on the left, or the right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you find yourself saying &#8220;but we&#8217;re at x stage. This is not the agreed process?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or &#8220;but the signed off documentation says x&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or &#8220;but the contract says x&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or &#8220;the plan says x&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>I was.  &lt;&lt;blush>>,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s the reality (for me, at least&#8230;).  Our customers are great at what they do. But they don&#8217;t live in our world.  Which they shouldn&#8217;t need to&#8230; So, if they mess up \/ don&#8217;t understand \/ are ambiguous \/ change their minds&#8230; it&#8217;s not because they&#8217;re negligent; it&#8217;s because they don&#8217;t live in a software delivery world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Which is not to say customers have zero obligations.  But it is to say this is a two-way street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And&#8230; for this post&#8230; I&#8217;ll leave you with what I believe to be some of the most articulate words about servant leadership, that you could find.  Original link <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/agilemanifesto.org\/principles.html\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/agilemanifesto.org\/principles.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><br>We follow these principles:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer<br>through early and continuous delivery<br>of valuable software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Welcome changing requirements, even late in<br>development. Agile processes harness change for<br>the customer&#8217;s competitive advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Deliver working software frequently, from a<br>couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a<br>preference to the shorter timescale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Business people and developers must work<br>together daily throughout the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Build projects around motivated individuals.<br>Give them the environment and support they need,<br>and trust them to get the job done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most efficient and effective method of<br>conveying information to and within a development<br>team is face-to-face conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Working software is the primary measure of progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Agile processes promote sustainable development.<br>The sponsors, developers, and users should be able<br>to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Continuous attention to technical excellence<br>and good design enhances agility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Simplicity&#8211;the art of maximizing the amount<br>of work not done&#8211;is essential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The best architectures, requirements, and designs<br>emerge from self-organizing teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At regular intervals, the team reflects on how<br>to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts<br>its behavior accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>If you can follow the above principles (and this is not for all customers \/ for all use-cases \/ for all time) &#8211; in my experience, you serve your customer.  And, which is more, you may just be successful<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Agile isn&#8217;t about being responsive.  It&#8217;s about servant leadership. And&#8230; being agile&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34,25],"tags":[37,36,33,29,26,35],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions\/164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}