Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Now that the title has infuriated everyone…let’s consider what Agile development does for me the customer.

In the previous millennium, customers would decide what they wanted software to do, tell that to a group of persons who wrote software, and come back later at the delivery date.

Time marched on, as it usually does, and we decided (no one asked me for my vote on that day) the above pre-post-modern method no longer worked. We needed to do things another way. We needed a method that allowed me, the customer, to change my mind. I often changed my mind. My mind was full of so many swirling ideas that I couldn’t settle on any one and “stick to it.” Besides, “sticking to it” was one of those pre-post-modern artifacts like chiselling words into granite. We had word processors and, well, you know.

We invented the agile development methods. I could change my mind every two weeks. Huh, sometimes I could change my mind everyday! We had someone called The Scrum Master (why didn’t we name that a Jedi Master?) who would guide everyone like only a Master can guide.

In Agile development, the Agile team, led by the Agile Master, managed my swirling mind with all its daily insights of brilliance. What could be better than this? This is certainly superior to the previous millennium where I had to manage myself.

Aha! Perhaps that is it.

I love Agile because it allows me to hire someone else to manage me. I no longer have to manage myself.

Perhaps I should lie down and take a nap and stay out of trouble.

The above has some humor in it. I hope the humor masks the other stuff.