New York City Taxi Cab Drivers, from the newly published book, Beyond Agile.

[From Chapter Two, Beyond Agile (beyondagilethebook.com), A book by Jesse Tayler with Alex Cone —a must read for anyone with a stake or interest in the outcome of software production.]

We can see the nature of software Cycles, but nature doesn’t dictate software’s power and influence. 

New York City Taxi Cab Drivers are some of the most professional on earth, and if you’ve been to New York you know you’ll find some of the fastest.

There Are Speed Limits

Imagine two people take a cab ride from the same point in the city. One person might get the best driver in all New York, while the other, the worst. The best might deliver sooner and maybe save some fare. Maybe the worst driver got stuck in traffic and you’d end up paying twice as much.

But it is not going to be one hundred times difference no matter which driver you get. Taxi cabs just can’t go that fast, they are limited by the laws of physics.

Professional software engineers are not gated by the physical universe while professional Taxi drivers are. Computer scientists and their effectiveness are left unencumbered by the laws that govern the world in which we live.

Consider that changes in context for software engineers can greatly affect results. When a professional taxi driver switches passengers and route, there is no delay or disorientation associated with that change. In software, this is not the case. 

In our post-industrial worldview, we’ve been trained to think: adding more staff results in getting more done. We can readily see, each hour an employee is working is an hour’s worth of production. We can see this if you were doing just about anything from writing blog articles to assembling widgets, even paving the sidewalk —more man-hours equate to more work done, and why wouldn’t it?

What If We Could See Software Design?

In the real word, where construction is visible, there are clearly sensible ways of making things. In our everyday experience we don’t see people building staircases into walls, or doors leading to nowhere. In our everyday world, if you think that on aggregate an hour worked is an hour of useful production, you’d be right. But in the unseen world of software, you’d be wrong. 

The fact that software’s design is invisible can serve to hide nonsensical structures. In software, you cannot see the walls nor the stairs. On the other hand, within the unseen universe of software there are no production speed limits as there are for professional Taxi drivers. It is this vast range of possibilities that makes software a challenge and a potentate. 

The problem here just might be how to see what direction you are going in the first place. Hours worked, even tasks completed are not indicators of underlying software design or construction integrity, and therefore they are not reliable standards of progress. 

This implies that some measures that are plainly sensible from the real-world perspective, are simply not valid for software construction. 

This fact may seem counterintuitive, confusing or even frustrating.

The important thing to consider is that compared to real-world professions such as Taxi drivers, the effectiveness of professional software engineers has a far greater spectrum of performance.

Can this software phenomenon be harnessed? Can it be measured? Can it even be understood?

The answer is Yes.

—

Read more about the new trend in software construction methods that is taking over efforts large and small. Beyond Agile is the book that sums up this new spirit and ushers in the awakening of this new era. Take advantage of expert knowledge and make your software teams happier and more productive than you ever imagined was possible.

beyondagilethebook.com