On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 11:39 PM, Ron Jeffries <ronjeffries@...>
wrote:

> I'd like not to hear many more suggestions that people here lack
> guts. I think we lack the kind of knowledge you two want us to
> present.
>

No, Ron, I think it's both. And I'm going to talk about the XP/Agile
community in general here - if any think that this generalization doesn't
apply to them, then please exclude yourself from this generalization.
Lately, there has been an enlightenment of sorts around metrics in the agile
community. For years, the concept of using metrics to communicate to
executives (or to anyone) was resisted by the Agile community. Now, there is
a dearth of good data to use to show how to 'measure' or communicate the
effectiveness of agile methodologies. Perhaps in a couple of years we'll be
further ahead. It has been resistance to using metrics that has led to this
situation. I don't think it was a complete lack of knowledge - I think it's
been a fear of metrics and data that, in general, has lead to what we have
today - a process mostly supported by anecdote and stories.

I feel the same about the resistance that is offered up in this thread. I
don't think we lack the knowledge so much as we are afraid that when we look
at the numbers they won't paint the same great story that, well, stories
show. I also think that, in general, the XP community is made up of a lot of
great programmers but few people who have the broad and deep business
experience it takes to understand why this information is necessary.

What would happen if we faced this situation head on? What if we did see
that the data didn't mesh with our world view? I think if that happened, I'd
try to find a way to improve XP/Agile, or explain the numbers.

Chris.


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