On Agile
Marco Ramirez (MSc.) ??
???? Autonomous Mobility | AUTOSAR Expert @ Continental (WG-DIA Member) | Continental Ambassador | LSS Black Belt | Agile (ScrumAlliance CSM, SAFe POPM)
February 11th was the 20th anniversary where the Agile manifesto was created.
It is crazy to imagine how much the world has changed through all this time. Smartphones, Smart TVs, Automated Driving weren't here yet.
Yet in that year, experts gathered to envision what they though really mattered about what product development is. I know, it is sometimes hard to accept it but we should be clear that our business, software engineering, is as much about technology as it is about communication and human relations.
Individuals and Interactions (over processes and tools). Think back on how actually our tools have now evolved to embrace interactions. Slack, Teams, Git, Github. On the flipside, processes have not evolved in the same way.
Agile is not about Scrum, is not about Kanban. From all these years I still don't get why we HAVE to do a daily standup and why no scrum master (that I've met) has really done something to make the retrospectives suck less. Is adopting a process no one really understand why something centered on individuals?
Working software (over comprehensive documentation). TDD, Clean Code, Continuous Integration. So much value has been created on this topic. The reason being that they all focus on what by definition is the ultimate source of truth: source code.
Customer collaboration (over contract negotiation). Personally, this perhaps is the single most important thing about agile. Create small increments, continuously ask for feedback, focus on collaboration and negotiation. This being valid both for internal (being the requirements, design, development, test, and deployment teams) and external customers.
Responding to change (over following a plan). I've seen here that most of my disappointment on Agile lies on. Is not about creating change just for the heck of it but responding to it. It not about using the trending technology but constantly monitoring your data and making conscious decisions.
Agile is perhaps the single greatest thing that has happened in our industry in the last 20 years but looking into the future, it is up to us to really stay up to these principles and values, to make this either a blessing or a curse.