It’s football season again in the U.S.A! Very excited! On Sunday, September 9, 2018, Carolina Panthers won their first game of the season against the Texas Cowboys (16 to 8), a home game at the Bank of America Stadium at Charlotte, North Carolina. Congratulations, Carolina Panthers! Keep Pounding! Great game, Cowboys and Panthers!
Speaking of football, Jerry Maguire, the movie (about football), has a scene most memorable to me — the scene where Cuba Gooding Jr’s character (Rod Tidwell) pressed Tom Cruise’s character (Jerry Maguire) to say loudly, the words: “Show me the money!”.
Would it be funny when your Business Owner presses you to say the same thing….only in different words? “Show me the working system!”.
SAFe principle #5: “Base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems”
There is no better way to see progress than seeing the actual accomplishment…not a bunch/set of documents. Per the manifesto for Agile Software Development: “Working software over comprehensive documentation”
The Power of System Demo…or any other demo for that matter is undeniable. You get to inspect the incremental progress of the system that is being built piece by piece at least every two weeks (at team demo at the end of each iteration)…instead of inspecting the system after, say, 3 months!
In fact, do not wait for the team demo…demo your work and get inspected sooner rather later…take advantage of the gift of fast feedback! You can make corrections or adapt to changes (as a result of the demo) sooner rather than later… to arrive at the optimum solution. Leading by hindsight is a very agile thing to do. Embrace the gift of feedback and put forth what you’ve learned to work. Lean-Agile mindset is for times of uncertainty — for adaptive environment; contrast that with waterfall…which is for predictive environment.
So..be a show-off… go tell the world the good things that you have done! Be like the state of Missouri — The Show-Me State!