I came across a wonderful quotation from ace Scots pen-jockey and moustache fan, Robert Louis Stevenson, that really helps get the Agile message across.
The principles behind the Agile Manifesto include:
“The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation”
RLS explains why:
“Literature in many of its branches is no other than the shadow of good talk; but the imitation falls far short of the original in life, freedom, and effect. There are always two to a talk, giving and taking, comparing experience and according conclusions. Talk is fluid, tentative, continually ‘in further search and progress’; while written words remain fixed, become idols even to the writer, found wooden dogmatisms, and preserve flies of obvious error in the amber of the truth.”
So next time a client asks why you are doing everything on story cards mention the wooden dogmatisms and the flies of obvious error in the amber of the truth…
