“I promise not to exclude from consideration any idea based on its source, but to consider ideas across schools and heritages in order to find the ones that best suit the current situation.”
Love, love, love this oath – from our friend Alistair Cockburn. Why is it needed? To remind turf warriors and methodology zealots that “Us versus Them” intolerance robs the business of progress. The Oath has lots of uses, because projects unfortunately tend to spawn multiple factions:
Agile vs. Agile: Agile methodology isn’t monolithic – it’s comprised of many different variations. There’s Scrum, Crystal Clear, XP, Dynamic Systems, Open Unified, and more. From my vantage point, most methodology proponents play nice with the other kids these days. It wasn’t always that way.
Agile vs. Waterfall: The software development equivalent of the vampire lit factions Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. Without the glamour.
Demagogue vs. Ambassador: Some zealots will vilify and try to discredit any team member disloyal enough to promote a good idea that didn’t originate from their team. They think the idea must be killed in a zero-sum game to prevent the other team from gaining credit. (Oh god, that just described the US Congress). But you’ve seen it happen at work – Team Development vs. Team Marketing is the main reason I started this blog. I may have even “excluded from consideration” an idea or two myself if one was presented to me before my second morning cappuccino.
Tools vs. Nice People: Some just try to jam and kill others’ ideas because they’re just – tools. Most businesses aren’t really going to police these nasty guys and gals – they may even reward them for a while. But nobody has the market cornered on good ideas indefinitely. Eventually stifling others’ good ideas will produce the opposite effect and discredit the stifler. I know, what goes around tends to come around more slowly than it should.
But don’t be a tool. Take the oath.