Agile Otter Blog

A few ideas rattling around my head need a place to live while I think them through, so I am shoveling them into the ole blog so I can think about prepping materials and exercises for a class I am teaching soon. I was considering an archetype developer that we've all seen (heck, half of us have been ) and how hard it is to reach this particular type when doing any kind of a technology or methodology change.  Here's the stream: There is this guy who believes he's an exceptional programmer, but underrated and under-respected by his peers. Why does he think he's good? Maybe he doesn't really believe it. maybe he's afraid. (@RonJeffries) A guy who never thinks or reads about programming off-hours, never goes to talks, hates pairing, skips reviews. Thinks himself an expert? b/c folks like that have a Darwinistic career advantage over peers who /are/ good but think they're mediocre/overpaid/overrated (@LancePurple). I suspect Dunning-Kruger Effect . Not go...

It's a common thread in agile transitions that people are not sure what pairing, teamwork, and self-organization will do to their status on the team. Will the team be so leveled that nobody will stand out? Will the weak be exposed and humiliated? I am going to write this as if there were two states, strong and weak. Before reading anything that follows, remember that everyone is good in some areas and weaker in others. I have seen javascript gurus who weren't very database-smart, and people who were great with requirements and product knowledge but had no sense of scalability or performance. Any human characteristics are spectra, not point measurements. With that in always in mind, read on: There is good news, more good news, and some hard and potentially sad news in all of this. The first bit of good news is that nobody who works in an agile team ever asks these questions. In reality, it's not a problem. Let's get down to cases. Rockstars If you are the rock s...