“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in oblivion bind them”
I am pretty much sure this catch phrase brings back a lot of memories, at least to all you cinephiles out there, just like me! I took the liberty of paraphrasing it just a bit (darkness replaced by oblivion) but only for fit of purpose. Allow me to explain.
As in the Lord of The Rings series, and so in IT and SW Development, everything was forged in a “prescriptive” way, much so that nothing could be done without some short of central control. The Ring in our case is “Waterfall”; the one process that controls it all, contracting, analysis, design, build, test, deliver, change management, project closure.
So back to paraphrasing The Lord of The Rings:
One Ring for Contract-Kings under the sky,
Two Rings for the Arch-Lords in their halls of tech,
Two for Mortal Project Men doomed to die (of work),
One for the Messenger (Delivery) kind,
One for the Change-Lords that stand-by,
And One for the Process Master in his overarching throne,
In the Land of Waterfall where the Past now lies.
As in the movie, there’s the need for a Ring-Bearer; someone that is not susceptible to its charms and that can successfully lead the team to the destruction of it. What could those charms be? We have all flirted with parts of the process before, either because we served (or still do) as a control mechanism at part of it or because we still believe it is somehow capable to deliver in a modern and highly sophisticated SW market; or simply because we fear change and find relief in our safe zones. The burden is simply too big for any Agile Fellow to carry, so the Council of Agile appointed “Scrummy” to undertake this task…
Stay tuned as the fellowship embarks on this amazing journey!
Author: Lampros Lamprou.