Clean Agile: Back to Basics (Robert C. Martin Series)

by Robert C. Martin

Releasing software to production every two weeks requires a lot of discipline and technical skills—skills that are not commonly found in teams used to delivering software a few times per year.

Companies are still not mature enough to understand that technical problems are in fact business problems.

As aspiring Software Craftsmen, we are raising the bar of professional software development by practicing it and helping others learn the craft. Through this work we have come to value: Not only working software, but also well-crafted software Not only responding to change, but also steadily adding value Not only individuals and interactions, but also a community of professionals Not only customer collaboration, but also productive partnerships That is, in pursuit of the items on the left we have found the items on the right to be indispensable.

Craftspeople strive to do the best job they can, not because someone is paying, but based on a desire to do things well.

What business should care about is that the lead time from business ideas to software in production is gradually reduced. Reducing the amount of money and time spent on rework (bugs, manual processes like testing, deployment, and production monitoring) is also a business concern that should be addressed by the development teams. Reducing the cost of experimenting is also a business concern. Experimenting becomes very costly when the software is not modular and easily testable. Business and developers should have conversations about business value, not technical practices.

Managers and developers should only discuss what is going to be delivered and when, not how.

Conversations between developers and business should be about why, what, and when—not how.