{"id":95,"date":"2006-04-27T14:50:14","date_gmt":"2006-04-27T21:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.redmonk.com\/cote\/wp\/?p=95"},"modified":"2006-04-27T14:50:14","modified_gmt":"2006-04-27T21:50:14","slug":"the-subtlety-of-people-over-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/cote\/2006\/04\/27\/the-subtlety-of-people-over-process\/","title":{"rendered":"The Subtlety of People Over Process"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Higgins<\/a> and Richard Brown<\/a> where kind of enough to use the name of this blog to spark a conversation about process in software development. While we might dismiss old blue<\/a> as a process heavy place, if Bill and Richard can be treated as an anecdotal data point, there could be plenty of Agility running around there. Now, being a large company, I’m sure there’s plenty of “waterfall,” as us Agile-dorks call “everything else” slouching through the hallways too.<\/p>\n

Cockburn the Anthropologists<\/h2>\n

In fact, my favorite Agile thinker, Alistair Cockburn<\/a> kicked off his career with the work he did at IBM. As he writes up in Crystal Clear<\/i><\/a>, in 1991 IGS, and more specifically, his boss at the time, Kathy Ulisse, wanted to come up a new, better process to use for OO projects. So she sent Cockburn around to as many groups as possible to find out what they did:<\/p>\n

\nWhat they told me was very different from what I had been reading in the books. In particular, they stressed aspects not covered in the methodology texts: close communication, morale, access to end users, and so on. It was not long before these issues separated in start contract the successful projects I visited from the failing ones. I came to see these issues, and not the design techniques, as the key to reaching a successful project outcome.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Gladwell’s success proves, people love counter-intutive thinking, and the above was, at the time, counter-intutive…at least from what books were saying. Ironically, Cockburn took a very academic approach to coming up with a very non-academic methodology: he did an ethnographic study of software development “tribes,” and then shaped it into his research, reports, books, and an entire career. In a very real way, he and other Agile thought-leaders are software anthropologists, which is simply fantastic: we’re lucky as a community to have people like that who we can draw on to improve ourselves.<\/p>\n

Good People<\/h2>\n

To mash in a quote, slightly out of context but happily related to the above, from Mr. Brown:<\/p>\n

\nThe only thing I’d add is that, in order to classify a process as mindless and choose to throw it out, you don’t just need good people; you need experienced people.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Richard’s point is the second part of what makes me like Alaistar Cockburn so much: his pragmatism. At the begining of his Agile Software Development<\/i><\/a>, he lays out a process for assessing the expierience (or “maturity” to use CMM terms ;>) of the people on your team. The write-up is much more thorough than the almost footnote-ish comments along those lines in other books, for example, “we assume you start with good people…right?”<\/p>\n

After laying out a model for asses your team’s skills — complete with fancy spider diagrams — he then make this extreamly pragmatic statement along the lines of: if you don’t have enough well seasoned people, this Agile stuff isn’t going to be easy. In fact, you might want to slow it down a bit. He’s since suggest a few core “tools” to hedge against all manner of development challenges<\/a>, including, I’d argue less than optimal skills.<\/p>\n

I’d quote from the book the assessment process from the book, but it’s such a great book that it’s always loaned out to someome. It’s one of those books I should keep a box of to give out ;> Needless to say, Bill and Richard are spot on to point out that skills are key.<\/p>\n

More War Stories<\/h2>\n

I’ve been off the enterprise agile horse for awhile — distracted by identity, systems management, and all manner of other shiney object ;>. It’s be great to hear from people like Bill, Richard, and others more stories about doing Agile development, marketing, selling, and the software in general.<\/p>\n

Several of the vendors I’ve spoken with have alluded to adopting Agile practices — BEA is the last one that I recall — and I get the feeling that those stories aren’t being told as much as they should. On the “customer side,” I know that people like Scott Mark<\/a>, James McGovern<\/a>, and my buddies back at BMC would love to hear about how Agile is going in big shops.<\/p>\n

I’ve been keeping my eye out for such stuff, but it’s worth putting out a general request to have more people write-up blog posts. To get the ball rolling, for those of you haven’t been long-term DrunkAndRetired.com podcast listeners<\/a> (why not?!), here’s a couple Agile war-story episodes we recorded over the past year:<\/p>\n