memorable quotes from xp2011

I have been at XP2011 in Madrid and it's been a great conference.

Here I am listing some of the great quotes I heard at sessions I attended (I already twitted some of them @mgaewsj ):

Help people jobs suck less B Marick about the role of Agile (managers)

In which world would this work ? alas in which universe would this make sense? E Derby about questioning (stupid) corporate policies, rules, manager’s decisions, etc.

Optimize for Business Value is fantasy D J Anderson

Multitasking is a fact of life D J Anderson about context switching, limiting WIP

Just pick a number and see D J Anderson about finding optimal WIP limits

Don’t call them user stories D J Anderson about differentiating requirements/work item types based on their source and destination (Strategic Product Requirement, Sales Requirement, etc.)

Servant Leader = Saint with Budget Authority B Marick about the role of managers in an Agile organization

Let the customer do estimation, he cannot be worse than a manager D J Anderson about avoiding spending (wasting) time estimating

Product Owner is a boundary object B Marick about the PO role in between business and the development team

A PO is better than a requirements document: he can talk B Marick

Legacy is not just code, it’s a mindset GeePaw Hill 

Sometimes the best thing you can do is help people quit JB Rainsberger about coaching in problematic organizations

One day people will laugh about this … Why not now? R Davies about coaching in large (difficult) organizations/difficult transitions

Testers have the most evil minds in the universe L Keogh

When you have specs you stop thinking L Keogh

Resources are Fixed cost items in a high cost country K Vilkki about how corporations “value” people resources

How should managers learn to manage? treat employees like volunteers M Poppendieck

Backlog items == rocks in the asteroids game: break them one at a time L Keogh

Bugs are scenarios we didn’t write down => we didn’t know we didn’t know L Keogh

Pushing = guessing, use pulling to avoid this L Keogh

Metrics should have an expiration date A Dhondt

Enterprise Kanban is just Kanban in SOA D J Anderson about scaling kanban

BBC Worldwide got the Kanban “flu” M Senapathi about the successful transition to Kanban at BBC Worldwide

Let’s keep agile weird B Marick about avoiding Agile being swallowed by mainstream corporate culture

Deep Legacy = Permanent Emergency GeePaw Hill

Switch from "I typed more code" to "I helped the team most" GeePaw Hill about pairing sessions

Detail is the opposite of Value J Brodwall about writing user stories and scenarios

In BDD e ATDD we test our understanding, not the code L Keogh

Conversations are the most important thing in BDD, tools are killing this  L Keogh

Testers are problem finders, not problem solvers L Keogh

Requirements are product design decisions that software team doesn’t participate M Poppendieck

A good stage-gate process allows feedback loops M Poppendieck

Stage-gate process should not keep you from going everywhere, just keep learning M Poppendieck

Busy does not imply getting things done M Poppendieck about having people work at full capacity (no slack time)

Being two months late on a big project is much more costly than letting people have slack time (and be available if needed) M Poppendieck

Assume you got it wrong L Keogh about looking for feedback (not validation) about your BDD scenarios

Users stories focus just on users, scenarios include many different views for each different stakeholder L Keogh about BDD scenarios vs User stories

Real Options are the hearth of BDD L Keogh

Focus on similarities J Eckstein about dealing with cultural issues when managing large distributed teams