Thursday, September 21, 2006

How does working in an agile team feel like?

Sometimes people ask me what the difference is of working in a team that uses agile methodologies as opposed to traditional approaches. Well, that's hard to explain, but maybe the following helps to explain it a bit.

One team I work with collects quotes from their members on their team wiki. I'd like to share some of the quotes with you as they reflect the culture and mutual trust among the people working in that team. To protect the individuals, I have left out the names of them.
  • "I would be very disappointed if [fill in a name] was that smart." (engineer)
  • "I haven't done any work for quite a while." (engineer)
  • "I have no idea, I'm just the story bitch." (on-site customer)
  • "Think of your best pairing experience." (consultant/coach)
  • "It's not really broken... There are different shades of broken." (engineer)
  • "All services are topless." (engineer regarding Service-Oriented Architecture)
  • "If you're ok to work by yourself then I will pair with you." (engineer)
  • "It's not a random failure, it's a semi-consistent failure." (engineer)
  • "I can think all I like, it still isn't going to get us anywhere." (on-site customer)

1 comment:

Joe Arnold said...

I'm glad to hear that there are other teams out there that keep track of these quotes. A team that I used to work with had a long-runing list. I'm sure that list continues to grow.

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This test makes me want to jump off a building. Granted, a really short building, and land on my feet.

I can't remember my earliest memory. I've already forgotten.

Programmer 1: We very clearly misunderstood what was written on the card and knew exactly what to do wrong.
Programmer 2: And you did an outstanding job.

I better drive, because if I don't, I'm going to drive you crazy, and not only will I drive you crazy, I'll drive everyone else crazy, and they'll kick me out of the building or fire me or both.

Programmer 1: I suppose that's better than an assert in the base class that fires at a customer site.
Programmer 2: I don't want anything that fires at a customer site.
Programmer 3: Especially if it misses.

Sometimes I think I'm really dumb, and then I realize... I'm not the only one.

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