Agile Explained... with a Train Set?!?
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- Опубликовано: 27 дек 2024
- We're back with another Agile Analogy - this time featuring a Hornby Train Set!
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We're back with another Agile Analogy - this time featuring a Hornby Train Set!
Do you recognise any of the movie clips? Let me know in the comments below.
And do you have a good Agile analogy? Would love to hear it!
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124. Agile Explained... with a Train Set?!?
#DevelopmentThatPays
What is Agile Today, I'm going to attempt to explain Agile with the help of a train set. Welcome to Development That Pays, the channel dedicated to profitable software development. My name is Gary Straughan, and if we're meeting for the first time, please consider subscribing and remember to hit that bell icon so that you don't miss a thing. I love movies. Have you ever noticed that when the bad guys have committed some dastardly deed and the good guys give chase, they very rarely get on a train. Trains are very fast, but in the chasing bad guys business, speed is not the main issue. Those pesky bad guys are famously uncooperative. They rarely run away in a straight line. No, the Starsky & Hutches of this world are pretty unlikely to be found at a train station. They're far more likely to jump in a car. What has this got to do with Agile Only everything, which I shall now attempt to demonstrate with the help of this rather lovely Christmas present. When I was first involved with product development way back in the age of steam, we'd go through a process that I now describe as waterfall. There'd be some customer research. We'd put together a design, and finally, we'd get on and build something. In railway building terms, the research is working out where to go. The design is working out how to get there, and building is of course laying the track. Only when all the pieces are in place are we ready to launch our product, and with the train ... Sorry, some of you just cringed there. I know it's not a train: this is a locomotive. This is a train. Off we go. After 18 months of research, planning and building, the product is finally, finally on its way to the customer. So nice to have a happy ending. Except the ending is anything but happy. The product we delivered was not what the customer was looking for. What we've built is a railroad to nowhere. Where did we go so badly off the rails Well, it turns out that figuring out what the customer wants is devilishly tricky. Even if, by some miracle, we're lucky enough to figure it out, if it takes us 18 months to deliver the product, there's every chance that the customer has moved on. We do much better to assume that the needs and desires of a customer are elusive and fickle, much like them pesky bad guys. Much as I love my Hornby Railway and my Flying Scotsman loco, this is no job for a train. This is a job for a car. That's because a car is much more flexible than a train. It's much more Agile. With a car, there's no need for an extended period of research and design. All we need, in the beginning at least, is a rough idea of where we're headed so we set off. From time to time, we stop to get our bearings, and if necessary, we adjust our course and set off again. In Agile project development, this means delivering something. Something small to the customer and gauging the reaction and adjusting our course as required. With repeated course correction, we slowly but surely zero in on our target. Yes, our progress is slow. Yes, we'd cover a lot of ground, but the outcome is inevitable. We will reach our target. It's only a matter of time. When we do, when we really know where the customer is, we may even decide to build a railway.
• Agile Explained... wit...
Had fun with this one. Can you spot the movies? 🎥
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone I believe is the first one, and then Dukes of Hazard??
Love the way you used the train set and the movie clips to explain this! So fun, haha! Cheers!
Thank you!
Loving the new video. very simple and engaging. That's one for my training sessions I think.Cheers
Thank you - much appreciated.
Great, thanks, Henrik!
Lots of logic here in being flexible. I'm wondering, still, how much we have to take into account whether the customer really knows what they want or need. I'll be checking more on Agile. Appreciated!
"[...] how much we have to take into account whether the customer really knows what they want or need"
@@Developmentthatpays Sounds more efficient! Thank you, DTP! We're enjoying learning more about agile.
This is AMAZING! (But I'm 9 and love trains). I like how you suggest, via Agile, that there should be regular interactive with the client to keep them engaged as opposed to losing them while working single-tracked/single-minded for a year and a half. Smart analogies!
Steven - Great to see you over here! Just been on you're channel - and subscribed, of course - you are so great on camera.
Thanks Gary! I will use it for introduction of agility in a course for female managers in logisctics
Fantastic!
Great video! my instructor recommended this video for an assignment.
Really? That's awesome! Glad you liked it.
Can agile projects be fix priced?
SWEET bookshelves!
Stepwise refinement? I vaguely remember that from long ago.
Yes Gary it is very very important. And yet I get a lot of resistance from developers (these are people who regularly deliver late and out of spec.
So my team now only run agile...if staff elect to leave because they do not like this...that is Ok......but agile is so compelling that there is other approach.
I hope you are Ok ...I have emailed
this to all our team ......Cheers mate...pity about the soccer.
But when I see the grest work done to rescue the Wild Boars..yhere are lessons here.
I live in Thailand ....wonderful place......so deeply pleased to see the 12 boys and the coach alive
Agreed!
Cute. That was fun.
Thanks Gary!
You are very welcome!
great use of humor, very engaging
Really glad you liked it!
Great analogy!
Thank you!
I love this - trains and Agile - great job... but I'm wondering about that ficklenss of customers. Does this vary with project size? I mean, if we had to build a channel tunnel, we need to know what the customer wants right? And a car or helicopter would be useless.... or varying direction!!!
Although there are examples of "we built the right thing... but we were too late", the (much) more common case is "we built the wrong thing".
There are some projects where it's tricky to apply an agile approach. But even in the case of the Channel Tunnel... the existing traffic above the surface (shipping) was a strong indicator of customer demand.
Love this!! Thanks!!
Thank you!
good one
Car/Train Analogy is interesting ... but for car you still need a road that needs to be built to get you to where you are going ... which is like a train track. So if no road goes to where you want to go then you generally have a problem unless you get one of those big 4x4 - and here is the rub if you had not done your research then you won't know you need a 4x4 and have built something not fit for purpose.
Hmmm
You're right, you're right: there's an underlying assumption of an infinite road lattice. We're going to need... a helicopter! 🚁
Helicopter.... that's where I thought you were going Gary.... Maybe you could do the scene from Mission Impossible with the Agile Helicopter chasing the Waterfall Train :D
Classic mate!!!!!!!!!!
Glad you liked it!
Good Example !!
Thanks!
Harry Potter, Monty Python the holy grail, Starkey and Hutch, Back to the future 3 only clip i don't know is of the slow moving train.
the times you said agile, just count them.
Five. (Really.)
@@Developmentthatpays you are awesome. I saw all your Videos
Thank you!