What's the most popular Agile method these days?
- FDD? Nah, no-one ever has seen a living FDDer - this method has been made up so there are at least 3 Agile methods on the list ...
- XP? Another fake - it's just a collection of programming techniques that:
- everyone has heard about
- barely anyone literally applies
- but all pretend to ...
- Scrum? Actually, Scrum is almost as rare as XP - it's the Scrum's lingo that is truly commonly used (it's passe to be a Team Leader these days, so everyone renames to Scrum Master)
The most popular Agile method is Jesus-Driven Development. Haven't heard about it yet? I'll give you a brief overview then ...
The key point ...
... about this method is the belief that all problems are just temporal & the flow of time is the best medicine, so:
- a written word is always right (in blog / book / or even worst - official PoV)
- the best way to deal with issue is to wait until self-organizing community deals with it (even if it didn't express any signs of self-organization before ...)
- if things do not go as smoothly as possible (too slow, too low quality, etc.), it's always only because people are just warming up
- peace and quiet is a clear sign that everything is going great & there's no point in asking any questions ...
Hope. Hope. Hope. And solid dose of ignorance.
Not backed up with any reasonable rationale. What is left, if not a prayer (hence mentioning Jesus)?
How do you practice JDD?
Easy stuff.
- By being passive & easy-going.
- By avoiding responsibility (or watering it down).
- By postponing corrective actions & other important decisions (to avoid accountability for making them).
- By doing nothing with your ignorance (to reduce it - I mean).
- By spending more energy of finding excuses or distractors.
JDD is highly contagious. One JDD practitioner, even given enough time & space, will easily "recruit" more followers ...
Bad news is that JDD (although very convenient ...) very rarely leads to any kind of happy end.
Succeeding in complex disciplines (such as software development) are based on scientific foundation, practical experience & cognitive abilities - this is not something you can fake or substitute with relying on luck. Things just don't fix themselves - without a proper, conscious action, e.g.:
- if your automated tests don't detect issues, writing more may not be the solution - maybe you're just doing it wrong?
- shaky environment won't stabilize if it's a handicraft build on quicksands - maybe try to identify unreliable element(s) & fix them?
- if people don't get empowered & self-organize around the work to be done, maybe it's worth investigating what is preventing them from that?
- do they feel secure about their work?
- do they have the knowledge / skills / tools to do it?
- is the goal / path to the goal clear enough for them?
