Inspired by Not the Nine O’Clock News. Chris Matts and I thought a “Not the Agile2010″ evening would be a fun thing to do while the official Agile 2010 conference is being run in Florida.
I loved Matt Ridley’s meme of “Idea’s Having Sex”. A fabulous talk exploring the importance of collaboration and exchanging ideas – the power of the collective brain.
Lewis Pugh’s incredible Mt. Everest swim to highlight melting glacier ice. An amazing story.
I’ve started sending this to people who ask me to help rolling out a standard agile software development process – showing the pitfalls of a standard process.
The most captivating speaker was Elif Shafak, talking about the politics of fiction. Such a wonderful story teller. I’ve ordered a couple of her books as a result!
We were so lucky to get Dave Snowden as an XPDay keynote back in 2004. One of the memorable moments was when he used the metaphor of organising a childrens party to explain the various approches to managing complexity. It certainly resonated with the audience (based on the conversation in pub afterwards – a wonderful XP day tradition!).
Dave’s now uploaded a version to YouTube… Fantastic stuff. I love the deadpan humour.
Mark has been explaining Solutions Focus to me for a while. It has some really compelling ideas and techniques that Agile people will find useful. So I thought it would be great to get Mark to come along to XTC and explain it himself.
The Solutions Focus approach is creating a stir in the fields of psychology and management. Whereas conventional approaches assume stable environments and predicable outcomes, SF is bringing a new, simple and effective flavour to the workplace and the therapy room with a view on ways to make progress while everything changes. Surprisingly, the approach is as effective, if not more so, than conventional methods.
In this session Mark will share his experiences of using SF in many business settings and help us to experience the approach in some quick interactive exercises. We will discuss how SF sits alongside Agile, how the two philosophies reflect each other and how Agile processes like retrospectives might be even more agile with the inclusion of some SF techniques. This will be a session to appeal to both the pragmatist and the philosophical.
I attended a fabulous session at XTC on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) given by Rixt Wiersma. Obviously we could only touch on a small area of NLP in the time available, but it inspired me to want to re-read my NLP books and that is always a good thing!
We discussed Robert Dilt’s model of thinking about personal change, learning and communication. Learning, change and communication can take place on different levels. Basically we do not change in bits and pieces, but organically, from one level to the next. To be effective you have to communicate on the same level as the other person. The levels are:
Environment: What we react to, our surroundings, and other people we meet. EG: This is a great desk for pairing.
Behaviour: The specific actions we carry out, regardless of our capability. EG: I started automating the GUI testing today.
Capability: The general skills and strategies that we use in our life. EG: We don’t have access to the real customer to answer our questions.
Beliefs and Values: The various ideas we think are true, and use as a basis of our daily action. EG: If we use Agile software development techniques we can deliver more business value and have lots of fun too!
Identity: The basic sense of self, your core values and mission in life. EG: I am a great java developer.
Beyond (think text books call this Spiritual): This is the deepest level, where we consider and act out the great metaphysical questions. Why are we here? What is the purpose of XP? EG: We need to be more competitive as we are loosing market share to our competitors.
The take-home point for me is that in order to have effective communication with someone you need to form a rapport and respect his or her internal models (ie the best rapport comes when you communicate on the same level). Obvious really, but you have to be told these things sometimes!
One very scary quote (think it was Richard Bandler):
To find out the beliefs and values of a software developer look at their code
I have just finished reading “Built To Last” by Collins and Porras – a wonderfully thought provoking study of what makes truly great companies.
Something that interested me is that, while they plan and have clear goals, they are also evolutionary and constantly adapting and changing. One point that they ram home is that visonanry companies create discomfort – to oblitorate complacency – and thereby stimulate change and improvement before the external world demands it.
They also have this wonderful parable of a martial artist kneeling before he master sensei to recieve their hard-earned black belt.
“Before granting the belt, you must pass one more test”, says the sensei.
“I am ready”, responds the student, expecting perhaps one final round of questioning.
“You must answer the essential question: What is the true meaning of the black belt?”
“The end of my journey”, says the student. “A well-deserved reward for all my hard work.”
The sensei waits for more. Clearly, he is not satisfied. Finally, the sensei speaks. “You are not yet ready for the black belt. Return in one year.”
A year later, the student kneels again in front of the sensei.
“What is the true meaning of the black belt?” asks the sensei.
“A symbol of distinction and highest achievement in our art”, says the student.
The sensei says nothing for many minutes, waiting. Clearly, he is not satisfied. Finally, he speaks. “You are still not ready for the black belt. Return in one year.”
A year later, the student kneels once again in front of the sensei. Once again, the sensei asks: “What is the true meaning of the black belt?”
“The black belt represents the beginning the start of a never ending journey of discipline, work, and the pursuit of an ever-higher standard,” says the student.
“Yes. You are now ready to receive the black belt and begin your work“.
There is lots of talk in the Agile community of the parallels with Manufacturing.
Mary Poppendieck (Lean Software Development) points out that development is an exercise in discovery, while production is an exercise in reducing variation, and for this reason a lean approach to development results in practices that are quite different than lean production practices.
That’s not to say that we cannot learn from Manufacturing – certainly the drive to reduce waste (muda as its called in Lean Thinking). reducing batch sizes and focusing on quality are equally applicable to software. I just liked Mary’s overview.
