Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Loving sustainable pace

We're getting closer to two years at work with moving from Scrum-like monthly releases to releasing daily. Back when I drove through the change into #NoEstimates and continuous delivery, I knew the theory that this would be different. Now I know the practice and wouldn't really want to live any other way.

I remember to appreciate the steady, almost uneventful pace we're delivering in because I met a friend yesterday, who reminded me that everyone isn't equally lucky.

My friend is a relatively new developer, with about a year of project experience behind her now. She mentioned how her first project was a waterfall project, and how she was struggling to keep up with the pace. Not because she was new, but because of big promises early on with little room to adjust. She mentioned how she felt that going for lunch seemed something you couldn't do, and that it was hard to leave the office on time, and impossible to make it to user groups like the one we met in last night.

She also mentioned that things had recently changed for her, as she joined a project identifying as agile. Small iterations and all of a sudden, the panicky skipping lunches turned into a steady pace of delivery.

I appreciate a lot her sharing her success with agile on feeling in control of her time again. It reminded me how much I value the sustainable pace and lack of fires around me.

Small batch size in delivery is great and helps create a pace that we can sustain.