Archive for May 21st, 2009
It is a Team, not a Clinic
We have by now held three sessions of the Agile Austin “Ask an Expert” service. The thing that impressed me most in these three meetings is the effectiveness of the the team discussion modus. Rather than make the clinic a series of 1-1 consultations, we followed Scott Killen‘s good suggestion to conduct it in the manner articulated in the statement of purpose:
Team discussions with any Agilists attending the program will be encouraged to maximize the sharing of experience and draw out the wisdom of crowds.
It is starting to become evident we enriched the experience and made it more gratifying by moving away from the {professor –> student} modus. The sessions are kind of everyone singing, everyone dancing. Rather than a plain answer for a plain question, we get much richer threads. Moreover, it is obvious the experience one clinic “patient” shares with another is as valuable as the expert advice.
We are starting to see repeat “patients.” It is really becoming a team more than a clinic.
A Note on the Standish CHAOS Reports
In his recent seminar Advanced Agile Project Management Workshop, Jim Highsmith made the following comment on the interpretation of the Standish CHAOS Reports:
The Standish data are NOT a good indicator of poor software development performance. However, they ARE an indicator of systemic failure of our planning and measurement processes.
Jim is referring to the standard definition of project “success”:
One time, on budget, all specified features
Jim elaborates on this key point in the forthcoming second edition of Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products. Stay tuned…
The Agile Executive 