Release 7: Planning the unexpected... the XP way
I am currently reading the second installment of Takeshi Kovacs' adventures, "Broken Angels" by Richard Morgan. Fantastic noir SF cyberpunk stuff, if you like this kind of thing. I must admit I did not pay that type of SF too much credit until I read "Altered Carbon", the first novel from Morgan. I am not hooked to the genre though, just to the author ;-)
Ok, why did I want to talk about this book. And why that title for this entry?
Well, Kovacs is an ex-Envoy corp member. These guys are trained to be excellent warriors and efficient killers. Their senses are enhanced and their mind is conditioned to coped with extraordinary situations which allow the Envoy corps to make split second decisions whatever life throws at them.
In this second book, Takeshi Kovacs remembers what he was told on his first training day to be come part of the Envoy: "Since it is logistically impossible to train you to deal with the unexpected, we will train you to not expect anything. This way, you will be ready for it!"
Now, in a subbtle way, that sentence resonated with me in terms of how XP approaches planning : there are two types of planning.
- plan for everything, including the unexpected (Waterfall)
- plan for the outcome, expecting nothing from the start (Agile?)
Waterfall will try and analyse everything, design everything, spec everything, document risks for everything, plan mitigation action for everything, action plans for everything. The problem we see with this nowadays is that the level of "unexpected" events (external and internal environment changes mainly) is increasing (both in number and frequency), and that to continue doing waterfall in this setup is harder and harder and requires more and more Knowledge people, trained in Change Management as opposed to Value delivery.
Agile on the other hand allows organisations to become ready for the unexpected. Agile is the equivalent of the Envoy Corps conditioning, at organisation level. "Since it is logistically impossible to plan budgets and resources for the unexpected events we will encounter in this Programme, we will train you to not expect anything. This way, the organisation will be ready for it".
posted by Oli @ 10:43 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
expect enything ?
expect anything ??
Thanks for spotting the typo Perrick. I did not expect that ;-)
Any other comment on this post?
I disagree - you do still plan to expect a path through the delivery, but invest a minimal amount in it until you come to deliver it. In fact, if you build up a large story pack ahead of development, you are actually breaking that too - you're investing a significant amount in a planned path for delivery.
The only way you avoid planning for anything is to only create the stories shortly ahead of the development (while keeping an eye to the high-level areas or functions that deliver most value). Agile analysis as well as agile delivery.
I seem to remember a respected XP leader running some sessions on agile analysis... ;o)
Thanks for your comment James ;-)
What is it you disagree with?
I am trying to show a difference in the way teams working in waterfall or agile might start viewing upfront planning.
This is about the fact that teams that are embracing and using Agile practices are more likely to be in the state of mind that I compared to the envoy corp: they actually expect things to change and are ready for it.
This post does not comment on what level of upfront analysis and planning "should" be done, even in an Agile context.
But you are right, it does not mean that because you have a team that can deal with the unexpected, you should not provide them with anything, and I am a fervent advocate of providing the team with the maximum information about what they should expect, as early as possible... An I think eXtreme Analysis can help do that by the way!
To finish this post, I want to come back to Takeshi Kovacs for a bit: he leaves in a world where people with enough money on the side (like him), can re-sleeve.
Re-sleeving is a process by which even though your body might be dead (due to too much exposure to the unexpected? for instance), your actual "you" is stored in a cortical stack that can be integrated to another body. The level to which you are prepared to accept knowing nothing about what will happen to you is therefore slightly different to our reality. An XP team cannot re-sleeve: if they are destroyed by a project, it will be harder to pick up the pieces than in a fiction book ;-)
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