François Beauregard from Pyxis Technologies interviewed me during Agile 2009 for their Vox Agile podcast. The interview is now online.
We chatted about a favorite topic of mine: how to expand the horizons for Agile. My point is mostly that the Agile crowd is mostly talking about basic issues in software development, including during the Agile 2009 conference. I fear that this my give the wrong impression to beginners (”how, so we only need to do this and that, and we’re agile? Cool!”) and even to seasoned practitioners (”this Agile thing is not addressing my needs anymore”).
I would much prefer that we talk more about complex problems, whether they relate directly to Agile or not. This can include technical discussions or more touchy-feely ones. As long as we are addressing difficult problems, we will be making progress.
I also want to see more cross-domains talks. Obvious domains are the heavy industry (I won’t need to remind how influential Toyota has been to the IT industry) or performing arts. But that could also include things such as Behavioral Economics.
Or not. I don’t know for sure. However, I do know that we should be taking more risks. And stop presenting Introductions to Retrospectives for the upteenth time.
At the end of the talk, I mention 2 things for further reading. Here they are, plus a bonus book that I’ve just read:
- Implementation Patterns, by Kent Beck
- Rands In Repose, a blog on technological culture and managerial aspect of life in an IT firm; posts are not frequent, but very interesting (and long)
- bonus track: The Logic of Life, a book by Tim Harford; this is very much in the style of The Undercover Economist
(his previous books, which I enjoyed a lot) and Freakonomics
(ditto)
The podcast is available in French on the Vox Agile site. Here is a direct link to the MP3 file.
