#2782

One Size Does Not Fit All

Tuesday, June 20th, 2006

Nordstrom's employee handbook contains just one instructiuon."Use your best judgement."The temptation in organizations, especially large ones, is for methods and practices to be applied across the whole gamut of projects regardless of their requirements or the background and experience of the people involved. Ken Schwaber's Caveat Emptor on this approach.In ...

Tags: agile, Metaphors
Comments Off on One Size Does Not Fit All

Common Threads – Tools

Tuesday, June 20th, 2006

This got me thinking..."High Altitude Mountain Climbing has many characteristics similar to Insurance SCM [Software Change Management] and Agile development methods in general. When you climb high-altitude mountains, you do it with a small team, there’s a window of opportunity to do the assent, it requires flexibility, it is adventurous, ...

Tags: agile, Metaphors
Comments Off on Common Threads – Tools

Common Threads – Failing Forwards

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006

There comes a point on most alpine climbs when going down becomes less attractive than pushing on to the summit. Climbers call this "failing upwards", or forwards. They are committed with no real possibility of escape save completing the route.Many software projects come to the same point. Often at "code ...

Tags: agile, Metaphors
1 Comment »