Sometimes my grumblings lead those around me to believe I may not be a person who is very agile-friendly. I know I come down hard on terminology at times, and for good reason: terms don't a finished product make. Now, I know that I've talked on some of these subjects before, but as long as blogging is cool the topic should be ripe.
My biggest concern with the whimsical world of agile practices is that in my time (which is a limited base of experience I know) I've seen more preachers than practitioners. This is probably just due to my lack of experience and such, but it still keeps me skeptical.
Take the example of a small town church having what is referred to as a "Revival" (common term to those raised in small town churches). Usually you bring in some big name preacher who knows how to put on a show and really entertain the congregation. He usually goes over his interpretation of evangelism and instructs accordingly in a way that just wows the audience. Then in a week he goes to his next venue (or back home) and he's done. He came, he preached, he left.
That's what I see a lot with agile and related topics. Many sensational people stand on their many platforms and evangelize for the cause. Most of which are consultants. And at the end of their contract they move on and spread their teachings to the next victims clients. Their words were all well and good and actually could lead to a good thing, but there was no practice, and usually when they go their methods go with them.
So I guess really my pretension isn't with the process of agile or becoming agile, but with the evangelists who go around preaching the good word but not doing much in the way of practicing what they preach. Since I'm a practitioner of learning by doing I need a doer to come in and do so that I can join in, not so much a teacher coming in to tell me how it should be.
Until next time
Les
