Chapter
3
Feeding Agility
Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.
Agility requires ongoing, background maintenance. As the Will Rogers quote above illustrates, you need to keep moving. While that was probably true as seen from the saddle of a horse, it’s especially true for us programmers.
The software profession is an ever-changing and evolving field; although a few concepts are timeless, others quickly become obsolete. Being in the software profession is a bit like being on a treadmill—you have to keep up with the pace, or you’ll get thrown off.
Who’s going to help you keep up with the pace? Well, in the corporate world, only one person will look out for your interests—you. It’s up to you to keep up with change.
Most new technologies are based on existing technologies and ideas. They’ll add some new things, but the change is incremental. If you keep up, then handling each new thing is just a matter of recognizing the incremental change. If you don’t keep up, technology change will appear sudden and insurmountable. It’s like returning to your hometown after ten years: you notice a lot of change and may not even recognize some places. However, the folks who live there, and see small changes every day, are completely comfortable with it. We’ll look at ways to Keep Up with Changehere.
Investing in keeping yourself up-to-date is a great start, but you also need to make an effort to Invest in Your Team, and we’ll look at ways to do that starting here.
Although learning new technology and new approaches is important, you’ll need to let go of old, outdated approaches as well. In other words, you’ll need to Know When to Unlearn (see how, beginning here).
While we’re on the subject of change, it’s important to realize that your understanding changes over the course of the project. Things you thought you understood well may not be as clear as you thought. You need to constantly pursue those odd bits you don’t quite understand, and we’ll see how and why you should Question Until You Understand starting here.
Finally, a well-oiled agile project team does many things on a regular, repeating basis. Once things get rolling, you can Feel the Rhythm, and we’ll show you the beat here.