Technology
In our last episode, we took as our starting point the notion that Scrum and/or Agile Software Development is more about how to manage tasks than about how to design software, both for quality, and for the humans who need to maintain and extend it. We explored ways of getting design into the process as much as possible. In this episode, we continue the theme by starting with the notion that Scrum/Agile, again, for all its success as a task management, estimation and communication strategy, has nothing to say about building and maintaining a great team. You might find yourself joining a team successfully leveraging Scrum for all its worth yet be at a loss as to how you can contribute. It’s not that you don’t understand the process. That part’s easy. It’s that, well, there’s the software, the ecosystem, the politics, the personalities, the design and the architecture. The technical debt. How might you onboard a team member when the project is complicated and the existing team are battle-hardened verterens? Does the nature of the project — its design — make this any easier? How do you define success for the new guy? Is there a place for ownership and responsibility? This and more on Flipping the Bozo Bit Episode 13. Download MP3