Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Today’s practice of delivering software and systems emphasizes continuous delivery. Today’s practice, however, fails at this. Technology is not the problem.

CI/CD is continuous integration and continuous delivery (or deployment). Work everyday. As each little increment of capability is finished, deliver it. Perhaps we deliver every day and perhaps several times every day.

Such is what we claim. In practice, we … well we sort of act contrary to what we claim.

Why do we act like hypocrites? Fear. We want to appear perfect and complete and whole. A trouble with delivering a little bit at a time is that the little bits are just that—little bits. They are not whole. They are not as good as we can imagine. If we had a little more time, i.e., a few weeks or months, we can deliver a complete system that knocks your socks off.

When you see my little increment each day, you won’t like it. And then you won’t like me and that is what I fear the most—rejection.

Now we come to candor. Let’s tell folks what they are receiving and how they are receiving it—one little bit at a time. Let’s ask folks what they think so far, and let’s be ready to listen to what they say.

Lots of folks will ask, “Is this it? Where’s the rest of it?”

Back to candor. We only promised a little at a time. In addition—and this addition is important—we promised to let them comment and we promised to listen.

People will ask, “When ya’ gonna’ do this or that?”

Well, we never thought of “this or that.” We had other plans. We learned that folks want “this or that” not what we planned. We have to change our plan. Rats. We hate not being in control. That’s another reason why we act contrary to what we claim. Our pride keeps us on our path, not on what folks actually want.

We entered this system-building field to focus on technology and not all those touchy feely things like fear, rejection, pride, and listening to ideas, hopes, and wishes of “them.”