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Agile Royale


Reading Time: 1 minute

King Arthur Baking Company, formerly King Arthur Flour, founded in 1790.

It’s clear what King Arthur Baking stands for:

“We are bakers, committed now as always to spreading the joy of baking. The joy of being part of a tradition and contributing to a craft. And of course, the joy your cookies, cakes, breads and pies bring to your life and the lives of others. That’s the power of baking.”

Now, replace “bakers/baking” with “makers/making,” and “cookies and pies” with “products,” and you’ll get the gist of Agile.

Indeed, Agile is for makers, not managers.

And the joy of Agile is the power of Agile, not processes, tools, or metrics.

Agile is about the mushy stuff of values and culture.”
—Jim Highsmith, About the Manifesto

So think of yourself as a King Arthur baker. Be a King Agile maker.

If you are a manager, be an enabler, not an enforcer.

Do your part and let good things rise.

Pink Agile


Reading Time: 1 minute

Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive (2009).

Thanks to Dan Pink, we know three things drive us:

  • Autonomy (directing our own lives),
  • Mastery (getting better and better at something we can be proud of),
  • Purpose (doing what we do in the service of something bigger than ourselves).

Agile practitioners rejoice! All told, these three things are what Agile is all about.

Chief Agility Officer


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Alois Ruf, head of Ruf Automobile, the car manufacturer famed for turning great cars (Porsche) into greater ones.

Alois Ruf and Melvin Conway agree: design by committee doesn’t work. If you want great, it takes one person’s vision, the character to stay true to an idea, and the persistence to make it happen.

Listen to Alois Ruf on Jay Leno’s Garage:

Jay Leno: “To me, the best cars are always one person’s vision. When I was growing up, it was Duesenberg, it was Porsche, it was W. O. Bentley, it was Gordon Murray, it was yourself—people who have one idea of what it should be, and they are usually right! Cars designed by committee, uh…”

Alois Ruf: “Committees don’t work. It takes one head, and [they have] to be persistent to make it happen.”

Design by committee doesn’t work, and Melvin Conway agrees.

Melvin Conway wrote a paper in 1967: “How Do Committees Invent?” The gist of it became known as Conway’s Law.

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Chez Agile Chef


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Alice Waters, internationally recognized chef, pioneer of the farm-to-table movement and owner of Chez Panisse.

Alice Waters says (and does) it best: start with good ingredients and discern for yourself.

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Work Not Done


Reading Time: 2 minutes

Less But Better
“Less, but better”
by industrial designer Dieter Rams.

If there is one Agile principle that doesn’t get the attention it deserves, it’s this one: “Maximize the amount of work not done.”

In fact, it’s normal—expected, even—to do just the opposite: get work done, and the more work, the better.

Agile values work done too, especially working software. But Agile values “work not done” just as much. Without it, things quickly get messy, and what may look like “agility” to some is anything but.

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