I have recently been researching the driving forces behind agile methods for a series of educational presentations I am making for a client.
I stumbled upon an image of a group of developers participating in the stand-up meeting which, I seem to recall, was on Kent Beck's site and was struck by the similarity between it and images I have seen in Mormon pamphlets, the ones that are obviously an image treated with a Photoshop style aquarelle post-process, that makes the image look as if it was the work of an impressionist painter.
I was startled to make the association between agile methods and religious fervour but re-reading the agile manifesto, which I always thought of as a sort of Marxist text, I see now is more of an evangelical thing.
Suddenly, the pieces fell into place and I felt a chill run up and down my spine when I realised that the morning meeting where everyone speaks a little about what they did the day previously, what they intended to do today and if they were having difficulty on some level or other, was a definite ringer for a witnessing.
Occasionally, meetings get a more conventionally religious overtone when a charismatic developer decides to expound upon hot theories during the sacrosanct fifteen minutes and extends it to forty five while people shift themselves into more comfortable leaning positions on walls and the backs of chairs.
There may even be a burgeoning market for cardboard cut-out pulpits!
I stumbled upon an image of a group of developers participating in the stand-up meeting which, I seem to recall, was on Kent Beck's site and was struck by the similarity between it and images I have seen in Mormon pamphlets, the ones that are obviously an image treated with a Photoshop style aquarelle post-process, that makes the image look as if it was the work of an impressionist painter.
I was startled to make the association between agile methods and religious fervour but re-reading the agile manifesto, which I always thought of as a sort of Marxist text, I see now is more of an evangelical thing.
Suddenly, the pieces fell into place and I felt a chill run up and down my spine when I realised that the morning meeting where everyone speaks a little about what they did the day previously, what they intended to do today and if they were having difficulty on some level or other, was a definite ringer for a witnessing.
Occasionally, meetings get a more conventionally religious overtone when a charismatic developer decides to expound upon hot theories during the sacrosanct fifteen minutes and extends it to forty five while people shift themselves into more comfortable leaning positions on walls and the backs of chairs.
There may even be a burgeoning market for cardboard cut-out pulpits!
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