Tom Gilb & Kai Gilb's blog

Taking Agile from Tactics to Strategy
Posted By Glenn Vanderburg on February 04, 2009

Tom's comment

Glenn,
Re Gilb's Law (DeMarco, Peopleware). It is one of my pet peeves that

1. Agilistas do not Measure enough of the critical Stakeholder values.
I believe this leads directly to lower Stakeholder satisfaction with our efforts.
There is no agile principle or value against measuring critical Stakeholder requirements.
But thinking like real (software) engineers (thinking about multiple measures of goodness) seems alien to the softcrafter (programmer) culture. Papers and slides on this at gilb.com

2. It is worth distinguishing between the process of 'quantification' (putting a number on it) and 'measurement' (getting feedback, and the consequent process of analyzing it and acting on that information).
Quantification, even without subsequent Measurement is a useful aid to clear thinking (what is this about?) and good communication (this is the Goal, gang).
Many people use the costs and difficulties of extremely accurate Measurement processes (which you discussed in your 2003 blob referenced above) as an invalid excuse to even avoid quantification.
In most situations there is a cheap-enough form of Measurement process that would give value for money.
There is not just one single cost of measurement. Sampling is a frequent tactic to reduce costs, yet give sufficient accuracy for useful purpose.

Keep up the good work!
Tom

feb 6 2009 comment to his blog


GilbsLaw http://blog.thinkrelevance.com/2009/2/4/taking-agile-from-tactics-to-strategy
GilbsLaw http://www.vanderburg.org/Blog/Software/Development/Untitled 4.blog