Can't Grok, Won't Grok

Recently, Paul Stack asked me a leading question in preparation for his post: " Is it really agile? ". The question was: "do you think organisations are turning their back on agile?" My answer to this question was "no", and here are my thoughts. Who are we talking about here? Firstly, we need to establish that there are two kinds of organisation. Those that are actually living, breathing, functioning agile teams that have no problems adopting all the processes, ship regularly and deliver things of high value to their customers. These guys are not who we are going to be looking at here. We are interested in the remainder, the guys that may or may not be "trying" agile, but for one or more reasons, cannot be considered "agile" (more on this to follow in a later post). This is to keep it simple so we can just focus on the current "problem". The three wannabe agile-eers Let's look a bit more closely at these agile wannabes. I...

I am on a journey, and I am walking pretty fast - it feels great, it's invigorating . As I progress, I find myself entering a new environment, one that I have yearned for but is still somewhat alien to me. I am entering a strange new land and I need to acclimatise. My Journey Thus Far I am working my way toward my dream. I have freed myself of the corporate shackles and now working on my own project in the background while contracting. Once I have enough cash in the bank, I intend to quit work altogether and go full time on said project to bring it to fruition (or fail and move on). But as I progress towards this strange new world, I feel one key emotion - sheer excitement. Yes, there is a little fear in there too, but this is the indicator of doing something worth doing. Risk often means greater reward. Rewards are exciting. Yay. My Best Allergic Reaction Yet But, I have found myself suffering with something... I have discovered that the only thing really holding me back from do...

As I am sure you are aware, there have been several bouts of "rioting" here in London recently. I say this in the loosest sense, because it's not really been in protest of anything, it's actually just been mindless violence and looting. And this is what worried me the most. Peoples homes were getting set on fire, for nothing. Like a lot of other Londoners, I live above shops in a big old building. Fire safety? Didn't exist when these were built! So in short, the plan was to get out. FAST. So, when word on the street was that the mobs were coming to my area, I got a little concerned. I thought it would be sensible to just have a quick scoot around the flat to go over an exit strategy in case I/we needed to get out of dodge in a hurry. Luck favours the prepared . So I decided to sleep clothed, and pack a bag with everything I would need to get by: 2x underpants. 2x socks. Pair of jeans. 2x TShirts Passport Cash/Cards I also packed my Macbook Pro ...