My planned presentation approach was to tell the story of each project’s early (first 3-4) iterations and, at the point a significant issue/decision point occurred, stop and let the audience suggest what they think might have best been done at that point. Then I would reveal the decisions made by the organizations, why they decided to do so, and what happened as a result.

It was going to be called “A Tale of Two Cities” and would have combined what I thought were beneficial and deterimental decisions.

Well in the negatice experience reports, I would be interested in hearing: I tried X, it did not work, we think because of Y.
So I would know that in circumstances with Y , I have to be carefull if I try X

None the less, I have been to a few of those sessions. So, I’m thinking about how I *listen* to such sessions. I don’t tend to buy the whole “do it this way because it works” success story, instead I’m looking for concepts, practices, (warnings?) to add to my tool kit, which I will use when they seem appropriate in my context.

It seems I can learn such tools from both success stories and failure stories. It’s not the success or failure that’s interesting to me, but the details of what they tried, how they did it. I’m looking for ideas.

Perhaps the key example is how Royce’s original article where “waterfall” was diagrammed and actually rejected as useful was so misunderstood. Somehow, a phased, sequential model with little or no iteration became the “right” lifecycle to emulate. Showing “due diligence” in this lifecycle meant significant early plans and analysis.

I do think negative reports are not well-received, publically, as the response I often hear is that the organization “didn’t do Agile right.” Of course, that is the same response I get when a waterfall-like project goes South: they didn’t follow the process “right.”

My own belief is that, in either case, they didn’t understand the process “right” in the first place, then tried to follow it, but “tailored” it, in some way, when it conflicted with established ideas they had about what was “right” or “practical.”

That being said I do recognize the problem. Failures are abundant in the industry and there are probably lessons to be learned there. Marginalizing or dismissing negative experiences is short term thinking. It prevents learning and creates the positive vibe you mentioned that some actually find repulsive. And that hurts the – for lack of a better word – agile cause.

Any healthy community should have a dash of self-reflection and integrity (self-esteem?) to recognize weak spots, acknowledge and improve on them.

Deborah Preuss

The reason why we have this feeling is that we are not able tol write reports that don’t blame people or organizations directly. That problem is related to fact that we have not found a pattern for a negative experience report that delivers new knowledge without blaming anyone. Are we missing something here? science has been doing negative result papers for ever. Lone opf the most famous failed experiments led Einstein towards the relativity theory. We badly need these nmegative experience reports and we may still need to learn how to deliver those in a way that focuses on learning not blaming…

I got the example from a couple that was married for a few years. And they used he perfection game all the time for lots of different things in their life.
I think that in a long relation it is important to talk about this.
For me, asking to perfect the sexual intercourse is different from asking “was it good”?

With asking to perfect, you ask to improve it. You could also perfect it in general and not a specific act/day.

Yves

First, I’d like to expand your comment about the diversity that a junior team member to provide – this is a critical ingredient for creativity. And creativity is really important for great products.

The second comment is around craftsmanship. In the best organizations this is an ongoing process for everyone. People learn at a deeper level when training others, so Junior team members are useful in that regard.

The moment you consider yourself senior in leading teams go see a shrink.

Most people only lead a few teams in their life.
I led a new team of students every week (for 5 years) when I was at U2U, that gave me more experience then most people.
Especially because I experimented with the way I lead those teams. And I still think I have a lot to learn.
(That is why I spend 20% of my revenue on trainings)

A good constructive talk can help a lot of problems out of the world or a perception of someone.

As we say, we can only learn from our failures.

I also say the same to juniors. Just ask if you need some information.

Once I had a problem with a junior. He always came in late. around 10 o’clock or later. He works always late. The whole day he never asked questions. But the moment when we (the seniors) want to go home he starts with asking questions, so we have to do overtime, fometime 2 hours. He just doesn’t understand we want to go home. One day I just said, sorry it has to wait to tomorrow, because I need to be somewhere at that hour. He didn’t understand it, went to our unit manager. The day after this manager told me that the junior felt him overwhelmed by me and that I need to slow down. Explaining the situation, doesn’t helped; The manager just said we need to help the junior. In my eyes I didn’t overwhelmed him, but OK. From then on I just put the extra hours as overtime, which gave another discussion.

So the overwhelmed issue, is the certainly something to keep an eye on….

The term outwardly neutral or appear neutral gives me shivers.
It feels like it is fake. (I know you don’t mean this, but it feels like that to me.)
And for me multiple partiality is not fake, I choose party for each side in turns. And I don’t have anyone favorite. Even for those people who are absent. (And I might have never met.)