Major Projects - Inequities Necessary?

The thought that "no correctly-spec'ed project gets approved" leads me to lots of questions, and no real answers this morning.

I was thinking about the massive projects that the world has seen, like the Pyramids, great Dams, Bridges, Skyscrapers and Railways, or well-designed and -architected cities in general, and wondering: Are these things we marvel at, built on great inequities? Inequities that people of certain demographics cannot even imagine (thinking about myself as a white, male, middle-class American).

It's not comfortable to think about, but would such marvels even exist if there were not the exploited and the exploiters? Can this said to have been even necessary for technical progress?

Food for thought.

On the Principles of the Agile Manifesto

Looking at the basics of Agile in more detail over the last weeks, to help me apply it and other philosophies and methods to general, non-development project management, I discovered that the principles behind the Agile Manifesto are readily available.

Agile Principles, Translated, with Some Commentary

To help my Japanese colleagues understand the concepts of Agile more easily, after the jump, I'll translate the principles into Japanese, under the original English from the Agile website. The Japanese translations and any mistakes therein are solely my responsibility. Further, I'll take the opportunity to comment on what I see as important in the principles. For instance, do the principles allow for or even demand a lazy, free-for-all approach? Can an inexperienced team do Agile effectively, or, is mentoring needed?

Please have a look at the short article and commentary. Put your comments on this blog post; I'd love to hear from you, and I hope this article helps someone. Enjoy!

Between the Lines of the Agile Manifesto

Lately I have been thinking a lot about my firm eSolia's way of managing support and projects. We have a lot of experience with PM for both business and IT, and have applied that experience repeatedly to improving our process. However, one day I was reading something about Agile teams and a Lean approach to doing business, and I started to notice that our approach already matched what was being discussed. Perhaps our approach would benefit from what was being discussed "in the literature".

Looking into Agile, Lean and Scrum more, one thing I noticed about the Agile Manifesto is, it seems many teams claiming Agility are taking the most extreme stance possible, almost making reactionary excuses to avoid anything that smells of "structure". Very rebellious, and it's no wonder many of those same teams also claim that Agile does not work. But this sort of reactionary stance is not quite what the manifesto is stating.

Please have a look at this short article I wrote, regarding my interpretation reading between the lines of the Agile Manifesto. Put your comments on this blog post; I'd love to hear from you, and I hope this article helps someone. Enjoy!

Open Source Project Management Software - OpenProj

Wow, a full-blown opensource project management app from Projity. Check out OpenProj.