Fruit Grows On Trees
Lidor’s latest post is another gem. He says that methdologies, techniques, standards etc are just the manure you can add to a fruit tree. It might make the fruit grow a bit better, but if there are not solid roots (“commitment to quality and professionalism”) and strong trunk and branches (“a culture of mentoring, sharing, and open communication”) then the tree isn’t going to to grow at all, let alone produce quality fruit.
When Lidor refers to a long list of stuff (such as Pair Programming, SCRUM, velocity charts, burn-down charts, Bugzilla, Subversion, lint) he says this:
Each and every one of these methodologies, practices, tools, and standards is being marketed as a solution (and sometimes the solution) for the problems our industry is facing. Maybe the creators of these tools, practices, and methodologies, didn’t mean to market them as such. But the fact is, that most of us tend to perceive them as “just what we need” to improve quality, increase productivity, and reduce costs.
And this is why we want to get rid of the word “Agile”. The baggage it brings with it is extremely misleading. It brings the promise of better software, more productive and happy developers and lower costs. I’m not saying that “Agile” _won’t_ have these effects, but there are no guarantees and it will depend more on your developers and your organization than anything else. So let’s stop misleading people. Let’s continue to share with each other the things that have made software development better (in all the senses) _for_us_, but with the understanding that every context is different and so YMMV. Each of us will have to take all these examples and our own world into account before adopting a new tool, methodology or technique. Sound difficult? Well, yeah, it is. But the Pliant Alliance is not here to do your work for you and anyone who says they are is likely just trying to get into your wallet.
on October 2nd, 2006 at 9:55 am
What makes you think that if the term ‘pliant’ was taken up in place of ‘agile’ it would avoid a similar fate?
While I have seen a dangerous amount of dogma creep into the Agile community, it is by no means overwhelming, and I think the extent of it has been exagerated. (and a lot of it is backlash against the first edition of XP Explained. Kent Beck changed his tone in the second edition of that book, and no longer takes such a dogmatic position w.r.t XP practices, based on experience and feedback from the community. If not for that I would never have become a proponent of XP.)
I also think it is/was inevitable as agile becomes more mainstream. And dare I say it, to some extent it is a perception problem… no one in the Agile community that I know is preaching XP/Scrum/whatever as a silver bullet; they just aren’t shouting that it isn’t a silver bullet either. (As Ron Jeffries says, XP isn’t a silver bullet, just the most successful way he’s personally found to deliver quality software. He’s very vocal in saying YYMV.) I’m not claiming that no one is calling Agile a silver bullet; I’m just saying that it is not a widely-held belief in the Agile community that I’ve experienced.
I see the dogma that has crept into ‘Agile’ as a problem, but I don’t think it is very helpful to frame it as a conflict, or to lump everyone in the Agile community together with the most dogmatic elements of the community. It turns into preaching to the choir, and even alienating people who to some extent agree with you.
Surely there is a more effective way to convince the dogmatists in the Agile camp to change thier ways. I prefer to stay engaged in the community, and question dogma in a venue that will engage others, rather than alienate them. It just seems easier to me to reclaim (small-a) agile rather than give it up and come up with a new term that will probably have the same fate in 5 years. :/
Cheers.
on October 2nd, 2006 at 10:17 am
Thanks for your comment. First off, pliant doesn’t advocate anything except being flexible and thinking about the context your software development is in. Maybe some really really talented author could squeeze a book out of that, but IMO pliant is fundamentally unmonetizable, and therefore won’t see the same fate as Agile.
The level of dogma in Agile is really irrelevant to me. The fact is that it exists. Some people have experienced it quite a bit and have been turned off of Agile because of it. Others, like yourself, apparently haven’t experienced it and that’s great. I’m not really interested in a debate about how much dogma there is in Agile. I only know that there is enough to be a problem, to create confusion and to turn people off of Agile. Pliant has arisen solely due to the fact that it is extremely hard to discuss “Agile” vs “agile”. I’d much rather keep using “agile” but I don’t want people to confuse me with the dogmatic Agile practices that have arisen. I think about my context, learn about techniques and apply them where I think they will work. And if they don’t work, I try again. I evolve my software development practice as I go. This is significantly different from blindly implementing 12 techniques and sticking to them come hell or high water. And that is why I like the word pliant (or any word other than agile, for that matter).
Everyone’s experiences are different. I’ve talked to people who have literally been laughed at for questioning XP practices. This is horribly unprofessional and I’m not interested in associating with anyone who does this sort of thing. I’ve heard of more people claiming Agile to be a silver bullet than those saying YMMV. Maybe I’m just hanging around in the bad part of “Agile” town, I don’t know. The point is that enough people have had enough problems with “Agile” that something different was needed and that is what we’ve come up with.
on October 2nd, 2006 at 10:19 am
Oh, and as always, YMMV. If pliant is not the thing for you, then pliant itself dictates that you should move on to something that fits your context better.