FAQ
What is going on here?
pliantalliance.org is the home of Pliant Software Development. Pliant Software Development is a philosophy of software development based solely on doing what works and not doing what doesn’t work.
And what exactly works and what doesn’t work? What _is_ Pliant Software Development?
We don’t know. That is the whole point. We have some ideas and favourite techniques that have worked for us in the past, but we ultimately don’t know what will work best in every software development situation, because every software development situation is different. There is no silver bullet, and since we don’t want to accidentally insinuate that any particular process, technique, idea or practice will work or not work in any given situation, we choose not to endorse or denounce any particular way of doing software development.
How do I do Pliant Software Development?
Pliant Software Development is easy to implement. All you have to do is be willing to change the way you are doing software development if what you are doing now is not working for you.
What do you mean “not working for you”?
We don’t know, you tell us. Are you 100% happy with how you develop software? Are your managers? Are your developers? Are your customers? If you said yes to all these questions, then there is no reason for you to be pliant, so we suggest you go read something far more entertaining.
Ok, so I’m not 100% happy with how my organization is doing software development. What can I do?
You can change how you develop software. We know this may not be easy for some people or some organizations, but that is the only way you can even hope to start improving your level of satisfaction with how you develop software.
What specific techniques can we implement to be more pliant in our software development?
pliantalliance.org does not endorse or denounce any software development practice or methodology. We certainly have opinions and we know what has worked for us in the past, but there are plenty of other people out there who know more and have more experience that will give you a hand on what specifically to do. All we ask, is that you do something different if what you are doing doesn’t work.
This sounds a lot like Agile development.
Yes, pliant development sounds like Agile development, but it is actually simpler and doesn’t require a heck of a lot of knowledge or experience to implement. All you have to do is be willing to change.
So what is wrong with Agile software development?
Nothing is _wrong_ with Agile. We like and use many agile techniques and methodologies. We believe that in theory, agile development and pliant development are pretty much the same. In practice however, we feel that Agile development has become a little too un-agile. There are whole sets of “process” which fall under the banner of Agile development and unfortunately some people have gotten to the point where they are unable or unwilling to veer from the prescribed course of action. This leads to problems, because no two software development projects are the same. There are far too many technical, social and political issues to be able to come up with a 12-step program that fits all software situations.
We are doing {XP, Scrum, TDD, pair programming, user stories, etc … }. Are we being pliant?
That depends. Are you happy with the success, as you define it, of your software development effort? If no, then are you changing what you are doing? If yes, then would you be willing to change if what you are doing now becomes unsuccessful? What defines Pliant Software Development, is not what you are doing, but whether or not you would be willing to change what you are doing.
Can you tell me when to do/avoid X (where X equals any technique) ?
No. That’s for you to figure out, based on your situation. Make your own rules of thumb.
Are you spoofing agilealliance.org?
Certainly not. We have the utmost respect for the Agile Alliance and what they’ve done. There is no doubt that they have improved the overall state of our industry. The underlying tenets in the agile manifesto are all still valid and we believe strongly in them. Like we said above, we just think that the practical day to day usage of agile development is no longer as agile as it could be. And maybe we are assuming too much here, but we don’t think agile development is as agile as the originators meant it to be.
on June 10th, 2006 at 9:13 am
I’ve been thinking about writing a post on my blog about the various methodologies and their relation to the martial arts/philosophy. I think Pliant falls into Jeet Kune Do and Daoism.
on June 10th, 2006 at 9:34 am
[...] Agile Development = 5 Animal Form Kung Fu = Buddhism An attempt to break from rigidity but instead merely adds a number of extra tools to its box and attempts to become more agile yet still sticks to its general tennets religiously preaching such ideas as TDD, prototyping, etc. Pliant Development = Jeet Kune Do = Daoism The next level after Agile? I read the FAQ at their website and it struck me as very JKD, very Daoist. Live in the moment and adapt to change and willing to use ANY tool regardless of any pre-concieved notion. Cowboy Coding = Street Fighting = Anarchy Sometimes works but more often than not results in failure, pain and misery. [...]