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A Skeptical “No”
Just about every agile video, book, and article I’ve ever consumed assumes some variant of the underlying team model shown below. The product these types of teams build is comprised of custom software running on off-the-shelf server hardware. Even though it’s not shown, they also assume a client-server structure, request-response protocol, database-centric system.
The team model for the types of systems I work on is given below. They are distributed real-time event systems comprised of embedded, heterogeneous, peer processors glued together via a pub-sub protocol. By necessity, specialized, multi-disciplinary teams are required to develop this category of systems. Also, by necessity, the content of the sprint backlog is more complex and intricately subtler than the typical agile IT product backlog of “features” and “user stories“.
When I watch/read/listen to smug agile process experts and coaches expound the virtues of their favorite methodology using narrow, anecdotal, personal stories from the database-centric IT world, I continuously ask myself “can this apply to the type of products I help build?“. Often, the answer is a skeptical “no“. Not always, but often.
Signals, Sensations, Perceptions, Commands, Actions!
In humans, the sensors are the eyes, ears, nose, skin, and taste buds. The processor/memory/controller combo is the brain. The actuators are the muscles. Although not shown on the diagram, “commands” are also issued to the sensors. All inter-part communications “In Here” are manifested via neural currents.
Of course, this crap is all made up. It’s simply a cacophonous dump of what was in my tortured mind at the moment.
Why am I here?
WTF?
Meh!
D'oh!
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