Thread by @ekapic

Adopting agile practices was going to save the day, they said.

They were wrong.

Adopting agile PROJECT practices without accompanying them with TECHNICAL practices is putting the roof over a non-existing house.

THREAD 🧵👇

What are agile practices, BTW?

Reduce batch sizes ✅
Retrospectives ✅
Limit WIP ✅
Dailies✅
Scrum✅
Lean✅

Great and tested for building the right thing. 👍

But it says nothing on how to build the things right. 🤨

The Agile Manifesto

🟢Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
🟢Working software over comprehensive documentation
🟢Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
🟢Responding to change over following a plan

Nothing about how to build the working software?

Well....there is, actually.

Go to the agile manifesto page agilemanifesto.org

Below the signatories, there is a "Twelve Principles of Agile Software" link.

(The link that gets less clicks than "I'm feeling lucky" by Google)

Let's see what it says about how to build software:

Continuous attention to technical excellence
and good design enhances agility.

"Technical Excellence" and "Good Design".

Sounds just right.

Except for, what does that mean?

One definition, according to @Agile_Doctor Larry Apke: agile-doctor.com/2016/08/16/con…

"Technical Excellence": TDD/BDD/CI/CD ✅
"Good Design": Refactoring ✅

Don't forget "Continuous attention" in the principle, it should mean "focus on this".

TDD / BDD / CI / CD / Refactoring (+ Pair Programming) are part of so-called Extreme Programming (XP) practices pioneered by @KentBeck, @RonJeffries and @WardCunningham. extremeprogramming.org/rules.html

So, if you are proud to work in an agile way, make sure that you follow the XP technical practices.

You can be agile in project management but write sloppy and messy (yet working) code.

Been there, done that. 😩

"Yes, but....what about the cost of the TDD? If we know the solution already, why should I write tests first?"

Why should you pay the cost of extra time invested in TDD, indeed?

Because it saves future cost.

90% FEWER defects in code.
90% developers admit it reduces TIME and ENERGY to debug

Yet it only increases the time by 15 to 33%.

crowdbotics.com/blog/tdd-x-roi…

Why this is not so obvious as the benefits of iterative value delivery, continuous communication and limiting work in progress?

Beats me.

Beats @RonJeffries too, it seems.

https://twitter.com/RonJeffries/status/1092805275759853570

What is clear is that we have a lot to learn and to do in order to bring our development practices in line with project/product/delivery practices that are "agilized".

What do you think?

Like this thread?

Please RT this first tweet to spread it further.

https://twitter.com/ekapic/status/1501515108111077377

Follow me for more insightful content of the technical practices in software development.