IBM developerWorks Podcast: Barry Hawkins on agile software development
Earlier this year, my friend Andrew Glover interviewed me for season 4 of his IBM developerWorks Java Technical Podcast series (iTunes) on the topic of Agile software development. The episode is titled "Barry Hawkins on agile software development" and runs 41:03 in length.
This was an enjoyable interview; I've known Andy for years, and his style as an interviewer is quite comfortable and flows conversationally. What I really enjoyed about the venue is that it afforded me the chance to talk about software development, the Agile ecosystem, and the primacy of a healthy company culture in ways that I typically do in one-on-one or small group discussions, or talks at conferences that don't get recorded.
Here is a rough outline of the discussion with timing marks should anyone wish to jump straight to a given topic:
- 00:55 - How I got here: my journey into software and then Agile
- 05:50 - Things weren't always waterfall; Agile is a rediscovery of things lost
- 11:12 - It turns out Agile is hard, but not because the old way was better
- 12:25 - The underlying cultural elements of a healthy Agile environment
- 20:35 - None of the Agile elements stand well on their own; they work best as complements to one another
- 26:05 - As a newcomer to Agile, Lean, XP, and all this stuff, where should I start?
- 29:25 - No matter what: Get better at interacting with the other groups in your organization
- 31:30 - How to keep cross-functional interaction from becoming death by meetings
- 36:35 - The scarcity of good ideas, and why they get expressed over and over
I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed recording it. A big thank you to Andy and the IBM developerWorks folks.