What is Agile? Agile Explained... with a PENCIL!

What is Agile? Today, I’m going to demonstrate Agile By playing FOOTBALL with a pencil. Oh - and stick around to the end because I have a favour to ask. Welcome to Development That Pays. The Channel dedicated to PROFITABLE software development. My name is Gary Straughan. We do an episode like this every Wednesday. If this is your first time here Please consider subscribing and hit the bell icon so you don’t miss a thing. This is St James Park Home of Newcastle United Football Club. I was born in Newcastle, and grew up a few miles out of town. In Newcastle, they say that football isn’t life and death. It’s more important than that. Alas, my football skills were sadly lacking. But there was this game we’d play in class when the teacher wasn’t looking. Football. Kind of. ..I’m sketchy on the rules I guess we’d take turns to get across the pitch and score a goal. It struck me recently, that the game is a rather lovely demonstration of Agile. We have value delivered in small increments as the “ball” makes its way up the pitch. And we have the opportunity to “course correct”: It's easy to recover from a wayward first kick I think I’ve just figured out how to play this game. Now, where did I put my SPECIAL pencil Ah here it is, My turn Ready Aim Aim some more Fire. As I'm sure you've guessed, this enormous pencil represents a Waterfall Approach. It’s an eggs in one basket approach: we design, build and test this leviathan and launch it into the world. It’s either a big hit… or a miss. No second chances. If our aim is true If the playing field is flat. If the goal posts don’t move. We’re on to a winner. For me, that’s an awful lot of “ifs”. An awful lot of RISK. In an uncertain world, the enormous pencil starts to look less like an unfair advantage And more like a big-ass liability. In an uncertain world, we need a pencil that’s more… What a good word here? Agile. With this small but perfectly formed Agile pencil Our aim doesn’t have to be true. The playing field doesn’t need to be flat. The goal posts don’t need to stay put. All we have to do… is keep kicking. So what did you make of the "What is Agile?" pencil analogy? Perhaps you hated it. You thought that it didn’t work at all. Perhaps you really liked it and are wondering where you can your hands on an enormous pencil. Either way, I’d like your help with something I’m planning. I’m on a mission to collect the best “Agile Analogies”. So if you have a good one… or have heard of a good one… or can think of a good one Please let me know. If it helps to answer the question: “What is Agile?” I want to hear about it. Let me know in the comments below. I very much look forward to reading them and I’ll feature the best ones in a future episode - or episodes Thank you very mcuh for watching If you enjoyed this eposide Please click to like Share it with your network And hit the logo to subscribe for a new video Every wednesday I look forward to seeing you again very soon Cheers for now.

Channel: Development That Pays

Views: 190,018

Keywords: Agile explained, What is Agile, Agile software development, software development, software engineering, Mark Shead, scrum vs kanban, kanban vs scrum, scrum, kanban, Development That Pays

Id: k_ndH7B-IS4

Length: 4min 35sec (275 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 18 2017