PragPub 2010-10: Issue #16 by The Pragmatic Bookshelf

Author:The Pragmatic Bookshelf
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: PragPub—Monthly Magazine
Publisher: The Pragmatic Bookshelf, LLC
Published: 2010-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

The team was also upset because he had broken teamwork rules in acting unilaterally.

The “velocity increase” would only have been sustainable if at least one member of the team were always willing to work overnight for the indefinite future.

The cowboy’s solo, wee-hours-of-the-morning coding skills left the rest of the team struggling with poor code and its impact for the next day and a half. The “velocity boost” was a considerable net loss.

The positive element was that the team spoke up when they had to, and re-asserted their expectations for team behavior. They would not tolerate similar cowboy actions in the future.

We focus on building a team first. More important than specific Agile practices, we seek ways of getting individuals to learn how to collaborate even more.

In another shop, one developer balked at the thought of a shared team coding standard. “I think coding standards stifle individual creativity,” he said. Our Agile coach answered, “Yes. That is what they’re for.” That glib answer opened up a conversation about degrees of freedom and degrees of conformance, teamwork, production, and shared responsibility. The team ended up with a standard they liked well enough, found that it allowed them to work in unfamiliar code more easily, and over time they ended up working together quite well.

Agile is not the cowboy attitude of “do whatever you want because it feels right.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.