Cool Agile Quotes

Some great quotes on their website:

Distance is an excuse to postpone action. The more time you allocate to your projects, the longer it will be before you take action.

Transparency equals control. Transparency in product development means visibility into whats happening...and what isn't.

A note on that. Command and control is a paradigm of that a single hierarchical group or person can control complex systems behavior by establishing direction and by tightly controlling variance to that direction. Transparency, as I see it, means that there is only general direction, but that daily activities are visilbe to the stakeholders. So while they do not control the day to day activities, they can see them, and see what is causing them. You view behavior of a system rather than its individual components, and then correct by usually removing things outside of that system that are causing slowness or issues. If the problem is inside the system, since in Agile systems are small and peer-based, it should correct itself before its affect is obvious to an outside observer.

Agile Journal - Software Development Screwtape Letter

As both an agile advocate and a CS Lewis fan, this got me. One interesting concept from this, one that I had not heard, was that of a "cargo cult". I see cargo cults as the primary risk in going forward with top-down agile implementations, especially if the "top" doesn't get it.

Cargo cults:
During World War II a number of airbases were built on remote tropical islands inhabited by pre-industrial societies. During the war soldiers built airfields and control towers and engaged in various activities that resulted in large airplanes full of cargo landing and discharging their contents. The native inhabitants shared this cargo. After the war the soldiers departed and no more cargo was available to the natives. So they adopted, as best they could, the superficial form of airstrips, control towers, and ritual behaviors intended to induce the return of planes full of cargo. A cargo cult is any group that adopts form instead of substance and believes that doing so will bring about a desired result.

Agile Journal - Software Development Screwtape Letter

Happy New Year

Well, 2009 is here. Crapola, another year on the ticker. Hopefully I've got a lot of them left!

A quick list of resolutionites (mini-resolutions)

Personal:
1. Participate in the lukemia run this summer ( train now!)
2. Finishing Amici Picolli, my first children s book, and submitting to at least one agent. Date - End of year.
3. Building up HappyWisdom.com. This is crazy that I let that site linger. I want to refresh the page, get some fresh, systems thinking in there. Not sure. Maybe a new technology would help. So, goal: new content, one ad-drive at least. Date Fall, 09.
4. My book.. how about we just finish ONE chapter. The First Chapter, and then see what the interest is. Goal- One chapter and one query letter sent out. Summer 09.
5. Drawing. I need to really put resources into this, now that we have a new understanding of how healthy this is for your brain and innovation.

Travel:
1. Get julie down to Texas..
2. Get the fam to NY...?
3. Get us all to Disney...?

Work/School:
1. Stay employed (this is beyond me, but shows my mental state right now)
2. Bring innovation to my group via systems thinking.
3. Kick butt at a school and continue my enjoyable journey.
4. Go to Agile? Go to Pegasus in November. Lean conference(s)
Start the Tech Fellowship process - This happens NOW!