Do Your Homework
This is just a reminder to myself and the readers of my blog that it is critical to understand the originating domain and context under which new advice/principles/practices being applied to software development came from. Taking ideas that sound great on the surface and running with them can be catastrophic if those ideas are not well understood as they can easily be misapplied e.g. no testing as a reaction to “ceasing mass inspection” or the blind use of manufacturing principles in software development. For those of us leveraging Scrum, have you read the original seminal paper on Scrum as a Product Development Game?
I’m not discouraging looking outside the field of software development for radical ideas as I don’t believe the field will evolve if we don’t do so. Rather, I’m suggesting that we become more accountable in the application of these borrowed ideas. Let’s understand that our domain is unique in its own way and grow it in a responsible manner.
