Jim's Blog

Failing Successfully

In my last post Kibbee introduced me to a new word: Scrummerfall. That lead me to some interesting posts as well as another word: Waterscrum. Some interesting ideas and insights. I feel that it helps reading that - at work we're not alone in the suffering. It sort of lets the wind out of the sails too when you discover that the grass isn't actually greener on the other side.

I feel that we've failed at being "agile" at work but I will still count the experience as a success. Yes, failing successfully as it were. We've introduced things under the agile banner that I count more as basic software engineering tools / processes like a CI server, the standardized use of a build tool, adoption of unit test writing, use of static analysis tools to quickly provide feedback on the current state of the project. So even if people sit down at standups and want to plan 2 years of iterations, I'm glad that we did "agile". And I'd be glad if we could do it again, for the first time.