a canadian startup

From the Well.ca Developer Mailbox

From: Ali Asaria
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: all-developers@well.ca
Subject: Shift to Agile-ish Development

Hello Well.ca Development Team,

As you know, management has been concerned about our as-needed software development processes. As a small team, shouting at each other and making hard-to-find changes to other people’s code while they were away from their desk to avoid arguments worked fine.

As we grow, we feel we need to adopt more formal and serious development processes.

As you know, I have trouble reading books. But I have heard at many conferences that Agile is a great way to develop. I am not 100% sure what Agile is, but from what I’ve gathered, this is what we all must do starting today.

1. Stop Testing

Testing causes bugs and delays releases. The best way to test software is to put it into wild and wait for its little baby cubs to be eaten by other predators.

However, Test Driven Design (TDD) is a good thing, so we should always drive design with tests. Every time you write a line of code, try to make it into a mini-multiple choice exam.

2. The Customer is Seldom Really, Actualy, Truly Right

Customers usually want features and things to work 100% of the time. This kind of philosophy is what made Microsoft the failure that it is. This is contrary to the Agile philosophy of making things simple and slightly buggy. Bugs allow for improvement. Simplicity allows for us to be arrogant.

3. Less Privacy is Good for Everybody

We should all sit in a circle, looking at each other. If you see something funny on someone’s monitor — say, a funny email or something — you should point it out. This creates a team-focussed, we’re all family philosophy that makes good product. Share your food, or take other people’s food without asking. We’re family.

4. Scrum-A-Lot

Every day, at precisely 9:04, we all meet in the center of the office and list off the stuff we’re working on. If you miss this meeting, you have to do push ups or make everyone little pizza bagels with oregano and mozzarella cheese. Does anyone know where to buy mini-pepperoni?

5. Wearing the same shirt

We need to all wear the same, brightly coloured shirt with our company logo on it. Everyone gets one but you have to wear it all week. Wearing the same, poorly-fitting clothes promotes technical excellence and effective team behaviour.

That’s all for now, team. I am really excited about this new shift in development and I hope you are too.