Agile Quotes (from Twitter), Fifth (and last) Set

Back when I was writing my Old Blogs, I saved Tweets that, at the time, struck me as interesting when they appeared. The list was originally published in pieces as the total became quite long. long. So I’ll be reposting these in pieces to avoid posting a single list of dozens of pages.

Some quotes are not from Twitter users, but quotes other Twitter users thought were interesting from authors, philosophers, etc. There’s even a few here of my own. In some cases, there are follow-ups combined with the original.

This fifth (and last) set goes from “T” through “Z”.

Tanmay Vora — In the game of excellence, if you have “anger” and “ego” on your side, you don’t need an opponent! :)

Tanmay Vora — One of the biggest challenges for “Human Resources” is to do justice to “Human” part of it and not get into routine policies/processes!

Temple University ‏@TempleUniv “Don’t count the days; make the days count.” ~Ali

Thomas Cagley — The world is not rational and expecting people or even groups of people to act rationally is confirmation of the thesis.

Tim Ottinger — An expert is a person who knows what all the mistakes look like, and that you don’t have to make them.

Tim Ottinger — Axis: simple← →complex is a count of structural parts & linkages, unaffected by naming, syntax, obviousness of solution. Axis: clear← — ->perplexing is a measure of how easily one may comprehend the solution, aside from structural parts/linkages. A very brief routine may be simple and clear, or may be simple and cryptic. A long routine may be complicated and clear, or may be complicated and impenetrable. We find a certain synergy working in our favor in short, clear, simple routines. I would go so far as to say that brevity with clarity = elegance.

Tim Ottinger — Between the placebo effect and the hawthorne effect it is hard to know anything about anything involving human beings.

Tim Ottinger — Biggest tip for remote pairing: Latitude hurts, longitude kills. Common hours are helpful. [Actually, a general comment about distributed teams that I’ve heard various places.]

Tim Ottinger — How many orgs consider management “the art of getting people to work more”?

Tim Ottinger — I think that the agile motto should be “Building a better next week.”

Tim Ottinger (actually from a workshop at Agile 2009) — “My backlog is terribly frustrating. The users? Abusive, berating. Id like it all first, but will work in small bursts, if you let me make money while waiting!”

Tim Ottinger ‏@tottinge Code is not a collection of keystrokes. It is a collection of decisions, which are the distillate of experience and learning.

Timothy L. Johnson (via Josh Nankivel from Twitter)- Changing the world, surprisingly, looks a lot like living your life… day to day… with purpose… with focus… and with love. And there are days when looking at yourself in the mirror at the end of it all… and smiling… is really the best accomplishment. (28 September 2009)

Tobias G Mayer — If teams are not collocated, are they dislocated?

Tobias Mayer — IMO waste is defined as ‘work that adds no value for any stakeholder’ (others restrict to ‘for customer’). Much refactoring is waste ie rework.. due to commiting too early. Lunch breaks are not work, hence not waste.

Tobias Mayer — Scrum & XP are incomparable. Scrum is a framework for organizational change, XP for individual craftsmanship.

Tobias Meyer — Are agreements the same as rules, & if not, what’s different? I’ve always found group rules to be unnecessary, in fact detrimental. Dale Emery — Agreements come from people who agree. Not all rules come from (explicit, negotiated) agreement.

Tom Gilb — DeMarco is really saying we must control value not merely cost and time.

Tom Gilb (via Benjamin Mitchell) — “A software programmer is not necessarily an engineer in the same way a bricklayer is not necessarily a construction engineer”

Tom Gilb (via Grant Rule from UNICOM) — We are never completely ‘done’ while we continue in a state of competition. Most every project can easily identify a list of 35–40 stakeholders (people, organisations, laws, etc). Every IT project I’ve seen exists to deliver real improvement of business productivity, speed, quality, costs, etc. Not code!

Tom Kealey — Instead of asking the question “how agile are we?” try “how are we agile?” The difference is profound.

Unknown (via Kim Coles) — “The world is so fast that there are days when the person who says it can’t be done is interrupted by the person doing it.”

Vadim Zaytsev — Optimist: the glass is half full. Pessimist: the glass is half empty. Engineer: the glass is twice the required size. Tim Ottinger — _COST_ACCOUNTANT_: glass is too large, Engineer: glass has 100% safety margin.

Vadim Zaytzev — “Formal rules for comments are difficult enough to be easily forgotten to be included in a language standard” Michael D. Hill — aren’t comments for precisely the stuff we can’t express formally? if we could, they’d be called “code”.

Vasco Duarte — Irony is having the first quiet moment of the day in a canteen with 200 other people after heavy work load in an office alone!

Vasco Duarte — My def: “a method scales iff the effort needed to manage “things” grows at a slower rate than the number of “things”.”

Vasco Duarte — My def: “a method scales iff the effort needed to manage “things” grows at a slower rate than the number of “things”.”

Vasco Duarte — Ppl talk a lot about business value, but they forget that for most people business value is totally subjective! (i.e. unquantifiable)

Vasco Duarte ‏@duarte_vasco Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. — Maria Robinson #quote

Vasco Duarte ‏@duarte_vasco “Simplicity boils down to two steps: Identify the essential. Eliminate the rest.” ― Leo Babauta #NoEstimates

Vince Lombardi (via Jason Yip) — Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.

Vince Lombardi (via Jim Baran) — If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.

Virginia Satir — Understanding and clarity, not agreement, is what’s important in dialogue.

W. Edwards Deming (Via Glyn Lumley) — ‘Examples teach nothing unless they are studied with the aid of theory. Most people merely search for examples .. to copy them’

Ward Cunningham — Estimating is the non-problem that know-nothings spent decades trying to solve.

Ward Cunningham — Estimating is the non-problem that know-nothings spent decades trying to solve.

Warren Buffett (via Bob Marshall) — Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Will Rogers (via Ainsley Nies) — “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

William W. (Woody) Williams — Agile development requires continuous planning. Waterfall requires constant re-planning.

William W. (Woody) Williams — Despite rumors to the contrary, Scrum is not a project management practice, it is a software delivery method.

William W. (Woody) Williams — Highly motivated, productive people working in the wrong direction do huge damage in a short time.

William W. (Woody) Williams — It is infinitely better to mentor and train people — risking they leave — than to do nothing and risk they stay.

Willie Colon (via Roy Atkinson) — The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The WILLINGNESS to learn is a choice.

Woody Williams — The absence of failure is not an indication of success.

Woody Zuill ‏@WoodyZuill “Humans have a tendency to want certainty, and even to artificially create it, based on beliefs, when there is none.” ~Mike Rother

Woody Zuill ‏@WoodyZuill “Rush to Discover, Don’t Rush to Solve.” ~@dscofield

Yoko Ono (via Beatle Headlines) — A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.

YouTube Interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbuSsrGy5qQ), Tommy Emmanuel “Fight mediocrity tooth and nail.”

Yves Hanoulle — “A shared vision is about shared state, not about a shared statement.”

Yves Hanoulle ‏@YvesHanoulle Thx @jeantabaka: “Show up; find what has heart and meaning for you; tell your truth; respect the result.”

zach bonaker‏@ZachBonaker A “starter agile” team asks, “how big is this?” to assign points. A “modern agile” team asks, “is it small enough” to deliver rapidly.