THE CODE ISSUE 32
Here is another one of my favorite quotes (my final one believe it or not!) from the special double issue of Bloomberg Businessweek on computer coding. This one speaks to the perpetual challenge of seeking successful software solutions while simultaneously doing the dance of human debate, difficulty, and dilemmas (Paul Ford, “The Code Issue”, 6/15/15–6/28/15, p. 106):
“ The management of programmers is a discipline unto itself. There are subdisciplines that deal with how coders communicate. The most prominent is the ‘Agile methodology,’ which calls for regular coordination among programmers, providing a set of rituals and norms they can follow to make their programs work with the programs of others.
The Agile Manifesto (yep, manifesto) reads as follows:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
- Working software over comprehensive documentation.
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
- Responding to change over following a plan.
There are 17 signatories. And there are as many variations of Agile. I’ve had terrible meetings in my life when I sat between two teams and one of them explained, at length, why Agile with Kanban was better than Agile with Scrum. You could smell the money burning. ”
