Thoughts on Words
Thinking is shaped by the words we use. Management thinking is shaped by the words managers use and are used to. If we want people to change their mindset, we must stop to use words that carry a history of bad meaning with them. Let’s start to create a new language to talk about development that explicitly avoids mistakes made in the past.
Resources
People are human. They are not interchangeable. Don’t call them resources, because this term suggests they are.
Beautiful Waterfall (by robbieredball)
Waterfall
Waterfalls are beautiful. The idea to apply the “model” of the same name to software was ridiculous already to the author who coined the term… It has never worked. So let’s not use this metaphor anymore. I use mudslideas a replacement. (I know there have been successful projects that used a mudslide approach, I’ve seen these too. But these did not succeed because of the process, but because of good people.)
“Ideal” Days (Hours, …)
Please stop talking about ideal time as if there was some kind of non-ideal time … It’s a theoretical concept that comes from treating humans as resources (see above). Time is relative, ideal or not. Estimating ideal hours/days does not add value, only confusion, and leads to dysfunction. Don’t go there.
7 Comments
Marc Löffler
October 11, 2011Hi Olaf
I already love your series. I’m looking forward to your next posts. Keep up the good work 🙂
– marc
Olaf
October 11, 2011Thank you, Marc. There are a few in the pipeline:-)
Olaf
AgileRenee
October 11, 2011Mudslides – lol!
I share your concern and have raised similar sentiments but I am also worried that we are muddying the waters (hmm perhaps intentional pun).
My big problem has been in terms like ‘scrum’, ‘epic’, ‘story’ ‘planning poker’.
I wonder if there is something about time being non linear when you have a time machine… but none of us have time machines so there is no way that we should be estimating stories to time.
Olaf
October 11, 2011Could you elaborate on these problems you see?
“Scrum” is wrong as Takeuchi and Nonaka misread the Rugby rules and named sth “Scrum” that was in fact meant to be similar to a Maul…
I dislike “epic” too—what about novels, encyclopedias, short stories, poems… Don’t have a problem with “story”, though. Poker?
I fully agree on not estimating to time. Estimation is bad enough (though sometimes needed) without time making it more dysfunctional:-)
Thanks for your comment!
Olaf
Catoliv
October 11, 2011Great series to start Olaf 🙂
Picking up estimations, I think the biggest problem is that most people say “estimations” but they are not listening to themselves.
Estimations are Estimations, and they are just that: es-ti-ma-tions.
Estimations are NOT an exact amount of effort needed to do something, they are an educated guess. Not the goal itself but rather the most probable path to get there.
David Koontz
October 11, 2011Nice start – interested to see where this goes. I like the mudslide visual.
I have a real problem with the P words.
Project vs. Product vs. Program vs. Portfolio
I find these very interchangeable and confusing. Could you clear this up once and for all?
Olaf
October 11, 2011I’d love to:-)
I favour product over project (where applicable, but in my experience services can be well shaped into products, too).
I never understood program (though I’ve worked with “program managers” in dozens of organisations of all sizes).
Portfolio is not much better, but I understand when an enterprise talks about a product portfolio. Haven’t yet seen a better term, and I’ve seen it done well, and lean (with Kanban, for instance).
Not sure where portfolio hurts…
“Project Portfolio” is a nuisance, usually synonym for “chaos”. Projects don’t handle complexity. That’s the topic of tomorrow’s post 🙂
Thanks for your comment!
Take care
Olaf