The core of any successful human endeavor is timely and accurate
feedback. Human beings learn from feedback. Some may argue that it is
the ONLY way humans learn. If you believe the neural networks folks,
it's ALL feedback.

Any method of software development that tightens up feedback loops is
going to improve over the previous method. If I make a mistake and
find out about it two weeks later, that's not as good as if I find out
about it the next day, and that's not as good as finding out in an
hour, or in a minute, or immediately.

Inaccurate feedback is also destructive. Courage is the key XP feature
for trying to ensure that feedback is accurate. That's very important
too. Bad feedback is just a shrill whine and not helpful.

If we are to improve on Agile, or on our own implementation of Agile,
we must focus on ways to shorten feedback loops, and keep the feedback
as accurate as possible.

Waterfall is a feed forward system. All of the information you need to
proceed should theoretically be generated by the proceeding step.
Nobody succeeds completely at waterfall IMHO because it doesn't match
the way humans think.

Give a trained marksman a good rifle, and he can hit the target with
the first shot. Give a nine year old an automatic weapon, and he can
hit the target quickly with virtually no training. That's because
there is immediate feedback of where the bullets are hitting, and it's
obvious what needs to be done to dial in on the target. Agile takes
advantage of the quick feedback of knowing if your software hit the
mark.

Nearly every common principle and practice in Agile can be cast to a
statement about feedback. Feedback from the code, from the customers,
from other programmers, etc.

What kind of feedback do you think is lacking in your software
implementation methodology? Or in your business?

I know that one key to success is hiring the right people. Not
necessarily the smartest people, or the most dedicated, or the ones
that know the right programming languages, but the RIGHT people.
People you can work with. People that mesh right. That work well
together as a team. How can we push Agile into the hiring process?
Hiring as a group? A longer hiring process? Competitive hiring? What?

How can we improve the feedback from our programming groups to the
other groups in our companies? Can we be more proactive in informing
other groups about what we're doing? What can be done to shorten the
feedback loops of marketing, sales, administration, etc.

How can we improve the processes of getting feedback from our
customers? Not the XP 'Customer' necessarily, the real ones. I really
love what JetBrains has done in this respect. Whenever I report a bug
or a problem or a feature request I get an email back generally within
24 hours letting me know whether they were able to reproduce it, or
understand my suggestion. They tell me when they can't or won't do
something, rather than let me think that something MIGHT be in the
next revision. Their recent beta was less than three weeks. Incredible
turnaround time for most software companies. I've had issues that I've
reported addressed in just a few months. That kind of customer service
and rapid feedback is critical in today's software marketplace. Their
bug/feature database is online and accessible. I feel connected to
them, and honor what they've accomplished. I'd like to accomplish the
same in my work. Thanks for the example!

I don't feel at all the same way about Microsoft. I've never gotten
any feedback from them, not even an automated email response when I've
reported bugs. So I stopped reporting bugs. How sad for them. Many of
their feedback loops must be measured in years.

So, give me some feedback. How can we all get more helpful feedback?

-Kelly