Where’s the money, honey?

Tom Breur

4 November 2013

Sometimes discussions about “the right” flavor of Agile to pursue take on an almost religious nature. I have found that the viciousness of this debate can turn some people off. This is a shame, as fiefdoms within the Agile community, seem to only serve ego needs.

As an Agile developer, our customers “just” want good, valuable products. Can we justify this debate, arguing about “the right” flavor of Agile to pursue? Like with any discussion, we need to be aware that they can only add value up until a certain point. In Lean terms we would call anything beyond this point “waste” – no code ever gets written during the debate. When I label these discussions as “religious”, for me that point has passed a while ago… And you will typically want to minimize overhead, or waste (“muda”). Such is the responsibility of the professional programmer.

Why do people get so excited in these discussions? Is the evidence of superiority of one method over another really that compelling? Or might they need to identify with “Scrum”, or “XP”, or what you have? Do our customers really care? They want good products that prove themselves because the business is making more money using a new or improved product. More money than they cost. In the end, it’s not about the development method. It’s about the results.