Agile Cargo Cult

 An interesting read. 

"In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war, they saw airplanes with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head for headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas—he’s the controller—and they wait for the airplanes to land. They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential because the planes don’t land."

Cargo cults, or rather, Agile Cargo Cults, are faux Agile. It should be noted that organizations may easily slip into this behavior. This checklist would be helpful to assess your organization's needs. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Notes from The Five Traditional Process Groups Explained

Image
 Original article here 1 - Initiating - This is where the project is formally authorized by the sponsor, initial scope defined, and stakeholders identified. - It is important that the PM is formally authorized at this point, as PMs have a lot of accountability and little authority.  2- Planning  - PMBOK outlines 24 discrete processes involved in planning  - Significant idea is to think through the process in advance 3 - Executing  - Since the project team is important in execution of the process, it is also important that cultivating the team is as well. 4 - Monitor and Control - One way to think about monitoring and controlling is to imagine that you were driving across the country according to your plan or a roadmap. But if you got lost and you didn't have a GPS you'd stop, ask for directions and get back on track, or maybe based on new information, such as a new road that would cut hours off the trip, you'd change or update your plan. 5 - Closing  -...
Read more

XP: Card, Conversation, Confirmation - The three C's

Image
  This is a technique lifted from XP (Extreme Programming).  Card On each card is enough text that identifies a requirement. Notes of priority and cost are written on it as well. They serve as tokens for requirements and are handed to developers during implementation and returned to customers when completed. Conversation  Conversations are collectively exchanges of thought between customers and programmers. It is largely verbal, but may be communicated with supplemental examples. Confirmation Confirmation, in other words, acceptance tests, are defined at the start with the customer and shown to customer at the end of the iteration to confirm the story's completion. Note that extra documentation, while seemingly helpful, hardly "confirms" anything and cannot replace acceptance tests. 
Read more

Notes: 10 Knowledge Areas of Project Management (PMBOK 6)

Image
 Notes from here  There are 10 knowledge areas, as outlined in PMBOK 6, that are to be remembered sequentially. It is presented in logical order (with exception to Stakeholders which is tacked on at the end).  Integration: In other words, you can’t ‘do’ schedule management and ignore what the impacts of that might be on people, risk, communications, cost and the rest. Scope: Knowing what the project will deliver Schedule: all about making a detailed plan to tell everyone when the project will deliver what is in the requirements. Cost: Managing project fund Quality: Although quality varies project to project and many aren't as regimented, it is important to be aware and use appropriately Resource: Working out the resources needed to get the project done Communication: Creating a communication plan and monitoring for adjustments Risk: Covers an adequate overview of managing risks  Procurement: Depending on any purchases involved, there is a lot of contracting...
Read more