Agile Scrum is not working An Article by Gene Bond iism.org The Agile founders had it right, one size doesn't fit all. What the founders perhaps didn’t foresee, or couldn’t agree on, is that in order for the world to scale and consume their wisdom, it had to be packaged as concrete practices, not as abstract classes with virtual methods to be defined in context. And to the proponents of Agile Scrum, give them their due, for their part, they made it concrete – Agile Scrum has been packaged and delivered. Yet much work remains to realize the promise of Agile, which in summary is, the realization of wise use of lightweight development practices and workflows that flexibly adapt to the changing and evolving needs of customers. Beware SAFe, an Unholy Incarnation of Darkness agile
The heart of systems engineering While the client has some knowledge of his symptoms, he may not understand the real causes of them, and it is foolish to try to cure the symptoms only. Thus while the systems engineers must listen to the client, they should also try to extract from the client a deeper understanding of the phenomena. Therefore, part of the job of a systems engineer is to define, in a deeper sense, what the problem is and to pass from the symptoms to the causes. Just as there is no definite system within which the solution is to be found, and the boundaries of the problem are elastic and tend to expand with each round of solution, so too there is often no final solution, yet each cycle of input and solution is worth the effort. A solution which does not prepare for the next round with some increased insight is hardly a solution at all. I suppose the heart of systems engineering is the acceptance that there is neither a definite fixed problem nor a final solution, rather evolution is the natural state of affairs. This is, of course, not what you learn in school, where you are given definite problems which have definite solutions. Richard Hamming, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn What the problem isComplete and consistent requirements