This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz
by Robby Russell.
Original Post: class Goal; has_many :sub_goals; end
Feed Title: Robby Russell gets agile
Feed URL: http://www.robbyonrails.com/xml/rss20/tag/agile/feed.xml
Feed Description: Robby on Rails gets agile with Dialogue-Driven Development
”Problem solving proceeds by erecting goals, detecting differences between present situation and goal, finding in memory or by search tools or processes that are relevant to reducing differences of these particular kinds, and applying these tools or processes. Each problem generates subproblems until we find a subproblem we can solve—for which we already have a program stored in memory. We proceed until, by successive solution of such problems, we eventually achieve our over-all goal—or give up.”1
This caught my attention because this presents a very systematic process for achieving goals, but doesn’t clarify how you erect these initial goals in the first place. Our team is putting a lot energy into rethinking how we are requesting information from our clients. Brian Ford has written an article titled, Ethical Software Needs Dialogue, which discusses some of our current approaches to outlining the project goals.
Brian writes, ”One approach that we are trying is dialoguing with the client about goals without talking at all about the web site. In other words, for that exploration, the web site doesnât even exist. Talk about thinking outside the tubes.”