Agile Matters

One of our team here is a keen golfer, but has restricted himself to only playing in fair weather up until this year, when he experienced his first round of golf in the rain. Here’s what he said about it:

“Being the Agile geek that I am, I couldn’t help but assess the prospects for my round of golf based on the weather forecast, and plan in an Agile manner accordingly. In fact, golf is a pretty Agile pastime anyway - in both senses of the word! - as there is certainly a lot of incremental delivery involved in getting a ball from the tee to the hole.

When the heavens opened the other day, I knew my round would be ruined in terms of getting a good score, but I had come prepared with my big umbrella, and was able to react in a manner that provided me with enjoyment and satisfaction - the ultimate goal of the “project” - through adapting to the circumstances.

I even utilised some “pairing” through playing two balls off the tee, so I got the most practice out of the day, and will take some good learnings forward into the next stage of the project - hopefully this time abroad in bright sunshine!”

It’s that time of year again when the kids are going back to school. Not, one might think, an automatic choice for a post on an agile blog, but we’ve come across plenty of instances whilst the holidays have been on where we’ve had to act in an Agile manner.

Changes in the weather, changes of mind as to what is the most fun attraction to visit during a particular day, and even changes of mood have all contributed to our having to adapt to updated requirements whilst running the complicated project of keeping the kids happy in the holidays.

Those of us with multiple children have even utilised a system of Pairing to get two (or more) children working on the same thing at once - giving us some vital breathing space and the opportunity to refactor our plans based on updated goals.

Once again, it just shows you how Agile impacts on all our lives (at least, all those of us who work here, anyway!).

There’s quite a few of us who write these blog posts - as you can probably tell from the different styles and opinions! - and one of us in particular likes to take the opportunity of a long train commute to put down his thoughts. It was whilst engaged in this activity recently that he had the following thought:

“Working on the train is actually a fairly Agile pursuit in itself. Aside from the obvious possibilities for delays and alterations to the timetable that have to be reacted to, there’s always something about the journey that makes it different from the last one.

For example, on the odd occasion I don’t sit in the Quiet Coach, I’m always struck by how I have to almost close myself off from my environment in order to continue with what I’m doing. Periodically, of course, I snap out of that deep concentration, and end up listening to a 1-sided conversation conducted via mobile phone.

It’s on these occasions that I’m glad of my capacity for reactive management skills, and utilise the practice of incremental delivery to save what it is I’m doing, and refactor my workload according to what I’ve achieved so far, and what’s achievable in the time remaining of the journey”.

Whilst some of you might think that’s stretching the point a bit, we like to think it simply reinforces the fact that we really do have Agile running through our veins!