No, you mean Smart as a Bag of Hammers ...
My other working title was How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Methodologies ...
I'll admit, I am a vocal advocate for the agile mentality. It appeals to my practical side, the time-to-value, impatient, western business mindset shared by most of the executives I have worked for and with. The "universal truth": no one like to write requirements, and most people don't know the full requirements until they see the finished product (DWIMNWIS). Agile, iterative development is the way around this challenge.
Still, there was always that nagging doubt, especially when it came to foundational, transactional, run-the-business ERP stuff. SARBOX, 99% uptime, and highly-integrated systems all demand a very structured, controlled, rigorous QC process - that's traceable, auditable, yada. Some form of waterfall continues to be the best way to ensure success; also, the folks working on these systems have built their successful, fault-tolerant careers on this approach. Why mess with success?
The conversation was with a potential project partner, discussing something web-enabled that would faciliate processes for order/product information. The project had tight timelines - in retrospect, maybe a bit too tight, but we had to start somewhere. The hidden truth, of course, was that most of the magic was going to happen after the fancy web page gathered up the information; we had to initiate transactions, schedule production, etc.
All the meetings with preliminary partners were an effort to find out how they might approach such a project - was there a SCRUM in our future, or would they stick to the waterfall?
This potential partner made no decision, promising to work iteratively for the web stuff, and structured when hooking to the ERP. Were they waffling? No, just facing the facts: these methodologies work in different environments because they address specific needs. The real problem with any methodology / process / tool is when you try you apply it to all situations - that's just not realistic.
This was one of those things that was obvious ... once someone points it out (kinda like 30% of an MBA degree) ...
<aside> I've always felt that MBA school was 50% stuff you already knew, 30% stuff that was obvious - once someone pointed it out to you, and 20% really new information. </aside>
posted by James P. MacLennan at 10:09 PM
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