The latest thoughts and advice come to you from Chris McDermott. I first met Chris a few years back at a London LeanKanban day (My first real introduction to Lean & Kanban ideas), not long after that I saw him speak at the London Lean Kanban conference, not long after that I discovered LeanAgile Scotland, the conference that Chris founded and launched. The community has a lot to be grateful to Chris for. It remains my favourite conference and I am always amazed at the caliber of talks and speakers there. If you ever get the chance to go, you should. You won't regret it.
About Chris McDermott
Chris is an Agile coach, developer and conference organiser. In his career he has worked in various different domains from the police, investment banking, reverse logistics to media.
Since reading Kent Becks eXtreme Programming Explained in 2003 he has been passionate about Agile development. After discovering Kanban, and subsequently Systems Thinking, he has became increasingly fascinated with organisational systems and how to make them more effective and more humane.
Chris is the founder of Lean Agile Scotland and the co-organiser of the Lean Agile Glasgow meet up group. He tweets here: @chrisvmcd
Here is Chris's advice ..
Name 1-5 books you regularly recommend, or that you think all agilists should read.
- Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. His insights into how we make decisions are a must read for everyone agilist or not.
- The New Economics by W. Edwards Deming. While Out of the Crisis is considered Deming's seminal work I prefer The New Economics. In it introduces his idea of the System of Profound Knowledge which outlines the need to understand work as system, understand variation, have an understanding of what motivates people and also an appreciation of what is knowable/unknowable.
- Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck (original version). Speaks for itself :-)
- Great Boss Dead Boss by Ray Immelman. This, like The Goal, is a business novel that describes how people associate themselves with tribes and the way we structure organisations often leads to tribes competing against each other as opposed to working together.
Name 1-5 people you recommend agilists should follow on twitter (or other social media)
All of these great people https://vimeo.com/leanagilescotland
If you could get one single message across to the entire agile community what would it be and why?
Study the Cynefin framework and challenge yourself to always consider context and the applicability of your ideas in that context.
What do you do when you get frustrated with the industry? Do you have any coping mechanisms?
Speak to your friends and peers, share your frustrations, they’ve probably experienced something similar and can help you cope. Also don’t give up with the industry but know when to give up with the particular challenge you are facing.
What is your favourite failure you have experienced in your career that set you up for future success?
I once attempted to introduce an inexperienced group to XP. One half got it but the other half didn’t, I didn’t know how to best help them and in the end failed them miserably. Shortly after I learned about Kanban and the ideas of incremental evolutionary change. This helped me understand fitness for purpose and that in complex situations we shouldn’t design an ideal future state and close the gap but manage in the present and look to make smaller manageable and sustainable changes.
What advice would you give to folks who are just starting their agile journey? What bad advice have you heard given?
Try to understand why things like Scrum and Kanban work, understand the underlying principles and theories, so that when they don’t work you have a better chance of adapting to find something that does.
What direction would you like to see Agile go in in the next 5-10 years?
I’d like to see it continue to expand its knowledge and try new things, I’d also like to see less codification and big methods being sold. I’m confident we can and will do the former, less so about the latter.
Thank you Chris
