The great prophet known only as 'Agile' says...
Submitted by Antony Marcano on Wed, 18/04/2007 - 15:55.
agile
[textile]Ok, I'm sorry... I have to get this off my chest...
I was in a discussion earlier today. We were talking about specific experiences. Several of the participants in this discussion responded to certain choices others had made on their projects with:
"What Agile says is, you should..."
I'm hearing this more and more... I find this disturbing. 'Agile' has become a nameless prophet that speaks through the mouths of her disciples. Once the gospel has been spoken, do not contradict them for fear of appearing to know not of her teachings!
'Agile' is not an entity, it's a collection of ideas, many transmuted or borrowed from old ideas. If you must refer to 'Agile' as some sort of entity, then please use the word 'suggests' instead of 'says'.
I'd prefer to say, "One approach, most common to XP is..." or "Scrum addresses that symptom by..." or "< insert name of person > suggests on the mailing lists that you..." or, more often, "In my experience, I have found that..."
'Agile' is a term used to label a set of "values":http://agilemanifesto.org/ and an umbrella term for practices, grouped into methodologies, that fulfil those or similar values. It is not an all-knowing entity that answers all prayers of the suffering...
This 'way of being' is one of the symptoms of the problem(s) that has brought about the "Post Agile":http://www.kohl.ca/blog/archives/000166.html movement... let's hope they don't fall into the same trap... Although it seems that when something goes mainstream... that outcome is almost inevitable.
I was in a discussion earlier today. We were talking about specific experiences. Several of the participants in this discussion responded to certain choices others had made on their projects with:
"What Agile says is, you should..."
I'm hearing this more and more... I find this disturbing. 'Agile' has become a nameless prophet that speaks through the mouths of her disciples. Once the gospel has been spoken, do not contradict them for fear of appearing to know not of her teachings!
'Agile' is not an entity, it's a collection of ideas, many transmuted or borrowed from old ideas. If you must refer to 'Agile' as some sort of entity, then please use the word 'suggests' instead of 'says'.
I'd prefer to say, "One approach, most common to XP is..." or "Scrum addresses that symptom by..." or "< insert name of person > suggests on the mailing lists that you..." or, more often, "In my experience, I have found that..."
'Agile' is a term used to label a set of "values":http://agilemanifesto.org/ and an umbrella term for practices, grouped into methodologies, that fulfil those or similar values. It is not an all-knowing entity that answers all prayers of the suffering...
This 'way of being' is one of the symptoms of the problem(s) that has brought about the "Post Agile":http://www.kohl.ca/blog/archives/000166.html movement... let's hope they don't fall into the same trap... Although it seems that when something goes mainstream... that outcome is almost inevitable.