Does Your Team Have STDs?
Earlier in the week I was reading this post on STD's by Jared Richardson:
Once one person catches an STD, it seems to spread quickly. STD, of course, stands for Shiny Things Development.
Over the last few months I've been thinking about this exact problem, at my new gig we have a development process that seems to be much closer to sterile than agile. Given that I'm still fairly new to the team, I've been thinking about how to broach the subject that maybe the itch we're feeling might a symptom of something a little more serious, and that if we keep picking at the scabs we're never going to heal properly.
Finding that middle ground between "bright and shiny" and "it was fine 5 years ago and I see no way to change the way I do it" seems all to tough. One excuse I get hit with is that "we're too busy" to make changes, even as we repeat the same time wasters. Pity.