Am I Agile - An introspection of our life

Am I Agile?
– An introspection of life
Presented By:
Albert Arul Prakash, CSM, CSPO
© 2012 AgileCafe.in 1

Dilemma when moving to Agile
Developer
How can I
develop
software when
I have ever
changing
requirements?
Test engineer
How can I test
software when
features are not
fully developed?
Architect
How can I
design a system
without an
understanding
of its complete
scope?
Technical Writer
How can I
document a
system when all
I get are small
chunks in each
sprint?

The underlying anxiety
• How can I create something, when I don’t know the big picture of what I am
creating?

The underlying anxiety
Drawing an elephant by connecting
dots is easy
how can I do the same in software
development?
But

• I introspected on the path that I took to
reach a true understanding of Agile.
• I realized
– Our life itself does not follow the
waterfall model.
– Humans have always been Agilists
who have practiced Agile method of
living every single day of their
existence.
Introspection

Let’s Begin

During Infancy
• We always take baby steps when we
start walking.
– We never take long steps that might
make us fall.
• The first baby step takes at least 7
months.
• We are all provided with just- in- time
requirements like
– turning over to one side
– dragging ourselves forward
– sitting up, crawling
– standing
– and then finally taking that first step
• As a baby, we never had a
requirement that we needed to run
like an Olympic sprinter! Or did we?

During Infancy
• The requirement is
– a single baby step
– leading then to few more steps at a time without holding on to anything,
walking steadily, and finally running
– only after that do we look at greater goals like reaching somewhere
• Each stage is complete/testable in itself
• The requirement evolves as we (the product) evolves, and we commit and do it.

School (K-12)
• When it comes to studies, at school we
continue to use the iterative model
– first we read/learn for the
weekly/monthly portion
– we collate three month’s learning for
quarterly exams
– then we continuously expand our
knowledge by studying more chapters
– we collate 6 month’s learning for half-
yearly exams
– we add more value by adding another 6
sprints (of 1 month duration) for our final
exams

School (K-12)
• Thus, we continuously
– take the syllabus that is to
be completed every month
– integrate with our previous
month’s learning and
validate it regularly through
exams
– evolve our ways to solve the
problems that are ahead of
us
– move ahead to attain the
prescribed education level
by applying the knowledge
gained over the years

School (K-12) • None of us
– studied for PUC exams from day
one of schooling
– learnt everything in a single go
• All of us
– reached out for assistance to
teachers, parents, and siblings
when required
– adapted our study patterns to
our individual needs in order to
meet the goals of our schooling

Adult hood • As we move into college and
adulthood, we follow a similar
pattern
– in our personal lives
– in trying various ways and
means to be attractive to the
opposite sex
– to try and impress the one who
has impressed us
• We may not always succeed, but
we do add our experiences to the
knowledge pool
• We constantly refactor ourselves
to make things work and achieve
an agreeable romantic life

Goal changes by better understanding
• As children we aspire to become pilots, doctors,
astronauts, musicians, truck drivers, ice-cream
vendors – anything that catches our fancy at a
given time
• As we grow, our goals change based on our true
passion and expectations from life
• Many aspiring engineers become artists due
to change in priority and better understanding
of our value
This is applicable in developing software too, The end
result of the software can change dramatically based
on current priorities and understanding.

Let’s introspect our career now
• As soon as we join the work army,
– We stop being Agile
– We want a situation where someone
commits a deliverable on our behalf
– We hardwire our brain with an
attitude that
• we will follow what our leaders
say
• they know best and can commit
for us
• they will find ways to solve a
problem
• we don’t need to use all the
values that we achieved though
all these years

Time to break the illusion
Are we not following agile in our career
progression?

The answer is
We do follow AGILE.

• None of us
– became architects from our freshman
year in any software company.
Do you remember how hard we worked during
our software engineer life to get that senior
software engineer role?

• We followed agile in our career by
– taking one step at a time to
achieve our career goals
– marching ahead by adding new
goals once we achieved the
current one
– adding more value continuously
by evolving our knowledge and
way of solving a problem

• We are the same people who are now asking
– How can I develop software that has a product backlog that changes
constantly?
– How can I develop product without knowing its full system design?

I want you to ask yourself a question
now.

Am I Agile?

Presented By:
Connect @
Albert Arul Prakash
albertarulprakash@gmail.com
• http://www.linkedin.com/in/albertarulprakash
• http://www.scrumalliance.org/profiles/75425-albert-arul-prakash-rajendran
• https://www.facebook.com/albertarulprakash
• https://twitter.com/bepenfriends
• https://plus.google.com/101433668966009443790

Am I Agile - An introspection of our life

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