Agile Development Blog

I have a friend who was my Engineering Geology Professor and his name is Bernard Amadei.  Bernard found his “good work” right about the time I was starting Rally.  Bernard has a wonderfully friendly manner and a great French accent.

In early 2000’s, he took a trip to Mail to help a village engineer a solution for potable water.  Upon his return, he started working on Engineers Without Borders, which is now a movement.  At the beginning of this work, I collaborated with Bernard as he started the chapter at the University of Colorado and wove it into Bioneers.

At that initial collaboration, Bernard said he was forcing engineers to ask the question, Why? So often engineers just focus on how and what.  He was starting Engineers Without Borders to help give engineers a stronger sense of purpose in solving the world’s systemic problems. (Please see the YouTube video)

Bernard and Paul Hawken had a huge influence on me as I worked to draft the vision for Rally. You can read about my thoughts on the purpose of Rally on my Agile Commons profile page or listen to my BlogTalkRadio interview.

Without a clear vision and mantra , it is hard to answer the question, Why do you develop and operate software?

As you and your software team/organization undoubtedly ask the core versus context questions in your business, I have been providing thinking tools for analyzing your portfolio in these turbulent times.  As Israel Gat pointed out in his recent post, “Can you afford the software you are developing?“

You do not need to take a long time to do this work, but it does provide a checklist of things to ask before you decide what product/code lines you might STOP DOING:

Things to ask before you decide what to stop doing:

1. What are your core values and vision?
2. What is your core purpose – Why? (this post)
3. What is your receipt for sustainable shareholder value?
   
4. What is your approach for getting your software organization leaner and getting stronger in 2009?

Once we have taken all the costs savings from distracting/mis-aligned efforts out of the portfolio, it is time to figure out how to increase the performance of your software development organization.  Jean and I will dedicate most of February to making the “Agile development cuts costs” case for groups that are working on core/mission critical efforts.

While you think about those arguments, I ask you to reflect on Bernard’s point:

Have you found your “Good Work?” and does that match up with your core work?