There is a great difference between a fine meal and McMeal. The fine meal typically has been crafted with years of experience and training by chefs around the world. The McMeal is put together with years of experience based on what people want at 1:30 am in a drive-thru. The fine meal also places forethought as to how the components work together and play off of each other. With McMeals and other fast food meals, you are left to your own devices as to what you would like combine together at the last possibly moment.
Software Development
Similarly, Software Development can create solutions on which great experience and effort is expended determining how the components fit together or we can slap the functionality together for a McApplication. Agile can and has been guilty of creating too many McApplications over the years.
User Story Mapping
User Story Mapping is a great tool, but unless it is followed up by some analysis and design work to architect the solution, we are just visually drawing the new McApplication. While the concepts of delivering in iterations and visually planning the iterations is extremely valuable, jumping into delivering without architecting the overall solution is misguided and sub-optimizing.
If your first project work is cutting code after you have created a User Story Map, you are well on your way to creating the next McApplication.
We always need to remember we are professionals committed to creating, designing, and delivering the best solution to a business problem, Sometimes this may involve providing counsel to clients on why some stories should not be done, why some stories should be done later, why some stories need to be done now, and why some stories that they haven’t thought of need to be added.
Client priority rules the day of course, but if we just do what the client identifies without providing our expertise, we are no longer professionals. We are just order takers.
To avoid being just order takers we usually need to do some detailed analysis on what a story means and how it needs to be implemented. Just capturing the highest ‘placeholders’ to discuss functionality means you are creating your architecture as you go along. Yipes.
NoEstimates
Which brings us to #NoEstimates.
No Estimates does not focus on creating a better solution. No Estimates has been created so that the project can be forecasted. It proposes nothing to help create a better solution to a problem. Even worse, when No Estimates is followed to the letter, it can even absolve the team of project leadership duties.
No Estimates proposes that we will just work on what the client wants, when the clients wants it and we will stop when the client wants to. It overlooks a key responsibility of project teams to save the client from themselves with our experience and expertise. Agile sometimes seem to shy away from tough discussions that should happen early on projects. Some projects should never start.
Agile proponents forget that not only should code to tested early and often, but incorrect client concepts should also be. If we are taking direction on a client priority that we know is wrong and will result in a lesser solution, and we haven’t done everything we can to change their mind, then we are not Agile.
No Estimates proponents will probably state that all those things should be done on a project in addition to No Estimates, but by not putting design and architecture front and centre it is clear they primarily value forecasting.
Due to this, the type of solution you will get out of a No Estimates projects will probably be a McApplication rather than a fine meal and you’ll probably be hungry for a new solution before long.
Solution Leadership and healthy adversarial discussions over difference in opinions is not valued highly on No Estimates projects. The focus is on forecasting and doing whatever the client want to do next….
Would you like Fries with that?
Agile PMO 