I'm often asked in my capacity as an Agile guru what is the holy grail of true Agile enlightenment. Well for me it has to be when one can truly separate and detach oneself from what is required by the end user and instead concentrate on the more important matters. That of course is Agile and everything to do with Agile. Regardless of what the end requirements of a system may be, the important thing in life is that Agile is thought of first and foremost. Everything else is irrelevant. Only when you can come to terms with this, will you find the true meaning of Agile. Remember it does not matter one bit that a project may be delivered late or that you may be creating unnecessary overheads by using Agile tools. So long as you have practiced safe Agile, then you can sleep soundly knowing that you have achieved inner peace.
On a typical Agile engagement day I will do the following:
1. Every morning I shall assemble the minions (err... sorry I mean developers). I will then ask each to explain what he has been up to since yesterday and what they are planning to do next. I will then ignore any moaning from the minions (err... sorry developers again) as to whats holding them up. Further if at any point I feel aggression towards Agile and what it stands for, I will call on the old Pig and Chicken story. That usually gets the fuckers (err... sorry I mean client management) to stop asking awkward questions as to whats holding up the progress of work.
2. I then encourage a general chat - concerning what's been happening on television etc. After an hour and half the daily stand up will be called to an end.
3. At this point I like to take a junior developer aside and pair up with him - usually somewhere quiet, like the men's toilets. Here we can explore one another's strengths and weaknesses. I will often insist on TDB - Test Driven Bukkake. As I say to these junior developers, if you don't know where you are cumming from then as far as I'm concerned the Bukkake does not even exist. Above all we are in this as a team. Therefore we must all cum together if we are to achieve our final climax (err... I mean goals).
4. At some point during the day I like to produce a chart showing velocity. This is basically a random series of points joint together in any order so as to make the idiots (errr. sorry I mean client management) believe that the project is on course. I find this helps greatly in allowing me to concentrate on Agile instead.
5. Towards the end of the day I then assemble the minions (note to myself: must stop calling code monkeys, minions) for a final session in the bathroom. At the end of which we come up with a series of excuses for the next days standup.
In a future post I will explore in more details planning games, retros and goals. But in the meantime I hope the above has vetted your appetite (I know I've wet myself just writing it).
