Agile Maine Day - Keynote: Dave Snowden HD

DYNAMICAL SERVICE OR MANUFACTURING PROCESS? Most Agile methods and approaches drawn on manufacturing approaches, from short cycle production to Kanban and the like. Methods are packaged into recipe books and sold with training and accreditation. More recently the Agile community has been lobbying for its techniques to move outside of software development to business practice in general. Is this a new revolution in agility or simply an attempt to ameliorate the rigidities of Process Management and Six Sigma? Are most Agile techniques simply shirt life cycle waterfall techniques with crypto-anarchist ideology thrown in for good measure? Has Agile really broken away from linear, structured techniques? In this keynote address, Snowden (never knowingly uncontroversial) will challenge the case based, empirical approach that underpins most Agile method. He will argue for an approach to method development that is based on the constraints of natural science: the nature of systems, the limitations of cognition and entropy. The presentation will include the Cynefin framework and will outline new methods for matching technology capabilities against unarticulated user needs through the use of pre-scrum techniques and distributed ethnography. Snowden will argue that story points, epics and the like too easily constrain understanding of user needs to what we think they want rather than allowing their real needs to surface.