To counteract subversive agile rhetoric and restore a sensible foundation to software development, I've formulated four values more suitable for traditional development environments.
The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way. - Heraclitus
Reid - SCJP2 (April 2002)
Originally posted by Reid M. Pinchback:
I will say that his comments about project management are largely infantile, reflecting more on the author's own lack of knowledge than on the discipline itself.
The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way. - Heraclitus
Originally posted by Reid M. Pinchback:
I will say that his comments about project management are largely infantile, reflecting more on the author's own lack of knowledge than on the discipline itself.
Reid - SCJP2 (April 2002)
Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
Whose comments? Have you read the end of the text, by the way?
Reid - SCJP2 (April 2002)
Originally posted by Reid M. Pinchback:
Ilja pointed us at an article. Those are the comments I have been referring to. Yes, I read the end of the text. What point are you trying to raise?
The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way. - Heraclitus
Originally posted by Reid M. Pinchback:
While there is a fair bit of education involved in being an effective (and certified) project manager, the tasks themselves are often straight-forward.
One of the things that sometimes ticks me off with some of the xp/agile authors is that they have a methodology partially based on snatching techniques from other disciplines. They claim them and rename them as their own, and then berate the very people who gave them their techniques via a great deal more hard work and expertise than the authors have in the same area.
Not having a capable PM for a non-trivial project is the equivalent of being unwilling to let the organization learn from its project experience. Projects are expensive and can have expensive failures, and not being willing to learn from those is, in my mind, the ultimate in abject incompetence.
The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way. - Heraclitus
Manifesto for Agile Software Development
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Manifesto for Agile Software Development
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Manifesto for Agile Software Development
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
Manifesto for Agile Software Development
Responding to change over following a plan
Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:
Which part of the article is about project managers?
Reid - SCJP2 (April 2002)
Originally posted by Reid M. Pinchback:
Yes, I read the end of the text. What point are you trying to raise?
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
Originally posted by Reid M. Pinchback:
Oh, maybe the two paragraphs beginning with the phrase "A professional project manager...". Funny how English can be interpreted in so many ways. I tend to figure that two paragraphs talking about project managers and their responsibilities are, well, about project managers. Perhaps other interpretations are possible?
The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way. - Heraclitus
Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:
IMO, the main responsibility of the project manager is to make sure that all which needs to get communicated gets communicated ...
Reid - SCJP2 (April 2002)
Reid - SCJP2 (April 2002)
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
This is not the start of World War Three
No political ploys
I think both your constitutions are terrific so
Now you know -- be good boys
Mark Herschberg, author of The Career Toolkit
https://www.thecareertoolkitbook.com/
Originally posted by Reid M. Pinchback:
Not unproductive, although possibly unfocused. Try re-reading the thread from the beginning. Ilja posted a link. I made a nice, short simple comment.
Ilja asked for an elaborated response, which I gave.
In an open, honest style of communication among the participants there is no reason for an interesting give-and-take not to continue on that basis.
Instead, my response - which was only made because he requested it - became the basis for him to move the discussion into what I considered an inappropriate direction.
Ilja himself has gotten all hot under the collar in other discussions with a great deal less cause than what I provided as a simple description of the responsibilities of a project manager.
To me exchanging opinions, impressions, facts, is neither emotional or unemotional - it is simply an exchange of information.
Maybe it is one of those Mars vs Venus differences in viewpoint.
The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way. - Heraclitus
Originally posted by Reid M. Pinchback:
That is a tool of the job, but only a modest part of it. For a more complete and standardized description of the responsibilities:
I admit to a concern I have about some of the XP/Agile pundits, including Beck. They have very strong expertise in one or two areas, but lately seem to be making money by giving talks and selling books in other areas that don't seem to be to be their core strength.
They miss too much of the well-established, well-known, and easy-to-do-and-succeed-at stuff, and seem to be sucking people in to believing in a false level of simplicity. It becomes increasingly hard for me to respect the degree of hand-waving over issues that goes on, because I've seen people do or myself have done much, much better.
Actually, Ambler was engaging in a literary form known as satire, and from other threads on this board I suspect that Map is well educated enough for her to likely recognize satire when she sees it. The final paragraph is just a defensive escape clause by an author who lacked the conviction to take full credit for his product.
Why do you feel berated?
[...]Surely you could come up with a better basis for interesting discussion than dialog derived from Eliza.
what is served by heading a technical methodology conversation in such a negative and unproductive direction?
The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way. - Heraclitus
Originally posted by Mark Herschberg:
There is plenty of value in those traditional values, when applied correctly.
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Yeah, sure. Of course, given a team of experienced, competant developers, the process itself isn't very important, agile or otherwise.
Any good, well employed process recognizes the value of the people. Nothing in non-agile processes inhibits people's capabilities.
Of course, I think agile methodologies don't emphasize documentation enough. I think we'll see some backlash in the next 2-5 years as early adopters find after most people have left the project and it's now large and ingrained it's confusing due to a lack of documentation.
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
This is orthogonal to all processes.
Again, short of the 1960's version of the waterfall process, all processes today, agile or not involve using customers.
These are all good and useful values. However, nothing in them leads to agile software methodologies such as XP.
As Beck noted, nothing in XP is new. My view right now, is that taking these values, and executing existing methodologies with these in mind, is, in my mind, a better approach. But then, I'm still waiting to see the light--if there is one.
The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way. - Heraclitus
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