Discipline & Formality - is there a difference?

When I'm mentoring teams for the first time on agile methods and practices, as an introductory discussion, I sometimes ask team members to tell me what they know about agile development or what they've heard about it. If I'm not getting any negative perceptions I encourage them by asking that they tell me what they've heard regarding challenges in using agile or to describe things they've heard that don' t work, or even better how agile won't work in their environment.  Some of the typical responses are:

• Agile means no documentation
• In agile you can do what you want however you want
• It's about cowboy coding & hacking
• No reviews
• You change requirements whenever you want and as often as you want
• We can't use agile, because the product owner will change the requirements and if we don't have a signed off requirements document before we begin our design and planning we'll never finish on time

These negative answers speak to a perception that agile methods are both informal & undisciplined in their approach to software development. 

Reflection

This is Part 5 - the final part of the series

Part 1     Part 2     Part 3    Part 4     Part 5

Well this timing worked out just perfectly. A new year is here; time for reflection which is the last topic in this series on what it takes to improve performance of individuals and teams.

In the previous parts of this series I've used sports and music to evaluate lessons learned on improving  performance. Continuing with that theme, reflection occurs as a natural part of the process of learning. Reflection is also a natural part of agile development and agile coaching. In fact it is the primary way we improve our performance. Inspect and adapt.

Focused Attention

This is Part 4

Part 1     Part 2     Part 3    Part 4     Part 5 
In the context of practicing a musical instrument or a sport, the student can Practice, Practice, Practice all they want, but if they are mindlessly practicing they will not achieve the same level of proficiency as when they are focused towards achieving specific goals.

A few years ago I worked with a client where the IT group was very consistent in their delivery. Unfortunately, they were consistently late on every major initiative. I attended a meeting two weeks prior to the scheduled launch of a newly developed system where the team was discussing basic requirements questions. On another initiative the testing plan was first being discussed as the team was preparing for final data conversion and system launch. I watched other project teams fall victim to delays because of partially allocated resources. And the list goes on.

A Great Coach

This is Part 3

Part 1     Part 2     Part 3    Part 4     Part 5

Great coaches know their sport, know their game, know their playing field and are able to guide & teach to improve performance for individuals and the team as whole. Great Coaches get the most out of their teams.

If you're adopting agile, you're new to it and no one in your organization knows much about agile, it's best to find a great coach to help you get started and progress rapidly. 

Practice, Practice, Practice

This is Part 2

Part 1     Part 2     Part 3    Part 4     Part 5

Growing up I was in the marching band, in the drum section, which to me was the coolest section. As I was learning to play the drums we practiced rudiments - single stroke rolls, multiple bounce rolls, flams, paradiddles, ... Rudiments are the components that allow drummers to play various techniques creating the wide variety of sounds you hear in music. When first learning it took extra time to figure out how to control the sticks, how to keep the right beat, how to play the right sequences. We practiced slow at first then began to increase in speed. We practiced over and over and over again.

The same was true for the times I played sports. For example, in tennis we had a ball machine that would launch one ball after another to the same spot, where I would have to hit cross court forehands over and over and over again. This style of practice allowed me to improve my skills and become a better drummer and tennis player.

In the lean and agile worlds there are a couple of key aspects that allow us to practice.