Stainless Steel Bullets
A post on The Bag of Holding says some great stuff that I agree with 100%.
Yet time and again, we’ve shot ourselves with various shiny bullets. They look sort of like silver, so we hope they’re the ones that will finally slay our demons. And time and again, we discover that the bullet wasn’t silver, but merely polished up stainless steel or whatever, and now we’ve got a gaping bullet wound to deal with on top of the demons, who are now having quite a go at us for being so silly.
…
Look internally first. Understand and know your own problem. Know the people you are working with. The tools, location, and other stuff is likely irrelevant periphery; we must truly understand that our people are the most significant factor. It’s easy to put on a poster, but we must make sure that we truly understand, believe, and practice this.
Know thyself; and, once you know, do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
…
Every team, every project, every situation will be unique. If we focus too much on the generalities that are common to many situations, we will always fall prey to the devil in the details.
If, on the other hand, we learn to master the details, the pecularities which separate our particular situation from all others, we have eliminated the problem. The way to conquer imperfection is not to wish for it to go away.
The way to conquer imperfection is to accept that it exists, and adapt accordingly.
Great stuff.
On another note, the post also talks about how fads rise and fall in a fairly predictable pattern which usually involves some period of fighting between proponents and opponents of the fad. I want to clarify that when it comes to Agile software development, I am not an opponent. I think many, if not all of the techniques espoused by Agilists will work in many contexts.
What pliant software development opposes is what Mike talks about in his post, namely the blind implementation of a methodology that we believe will solve all our problems and make us perfect. This just isn’t going to happen and promoting a silver bullet solution is negligent at best. BTW, I’m not saying that the belief is valid or that all proponents of Agile are preaching a silver bullet, but it is believed nonetheless by some subset of the proponents, adopters or potential adopters of the methodology and thus it creates a problem for the rest of us who know Agile is not a silver bullet.
Someone is pushing the silver bullets and whether it is Agile, a get rich quick scheme or a diet plans, we should strive to debunk them whenever possible.
on October 5th, 2006 at 9:36 am
Great post. I think people in general have a conflict-based mindset. When we hear/read something we partially agree with and partially disagree with, we focus on the part we disagree with. (The “yes, but…” reaction; we spend one word expressing our agreement, and several sentences expressing our disagreement. The listener is left with an unrealistic perception of how much we agree/disagree).
This problem can be doubled in the case of blogs, as both the blogger and the reader can be having the “yes, but” reaction. So it’s good to see such a prominent reminder that you do in fact do support the valuable stuff coming out of the Agile community.
It’s always good to realize you agree with someone more than you thought at first. :)