We optimize what we measure Scrum does not say “only focus on output”, but, unfortunately, humans will optimize for what they measure. If you worry about story points & hitting your estimations, that’s what is going to consume your attention. That is what you and your team will optimize for. And that is the core critique of Scrum as it is practiced: That it focuses a product team’s attention so heavily on delivery — on building lots of features quickly & efficiently — that teams fail to focus on spending time to discover what the right thing to build is. Henry Latham, Why Scrum is killing your product optimizationagilefeatures
On Taste The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste, and what that means is — and I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way — in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their product. And you say “well why is that important?” Well, you know, proportionally spaced fonts come from typesetting and beautiful books, so that’s where one gets the idea. And if it weren’t for the Mac they would never have that in their products. And so I guess I am saddened, not by Microsoft's success — I have no problem with their success. They have earned their success — I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products. Their products have no spirit to them, no spirit of enlightenment about them. They are very pedestrian. And the sad part is that most customers don’t have that spirit either. But the way that we’re going to ratchet up our species is to take the best and to spread it around to everybody so that everybody grows up with better things, and starts to understand the subtlety of these better things. And Microsoft is McDonald’s. So that’s what saddens me — not that Microsoft has won, but that Microsoft’s products don’t display more insight and more creativity. Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview The aspiration for qualityWe'll slap a little color on this piece of junkSuch an unholy allianceDo they really need it? tastequality