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Haiku-Driven Development
Haiku-Driven Development
Using Ritual and Ceremony
to
Sustain Agilityand
Stave Off Process Fatigue
Process gets boring.
How do wekeep it fresh?
Tune up process.
Jean Tabaka
Who wants to be part of a “Scrum
engine”?
“I Don’t Like Mondays”
(Agile 2007 talk)
Processdoesn’t sustain
itself.
Ritualpunctuates
process.
Ceremonysustains process.
Traditionbuilds community.
Ritual
customary observanceor practice
Punctuation
clarifies meaningby separating
Ceremony
formal eventperformed on
special occasion
Tradition
specific practice of long standing
Ritual.
Team wanted to track.
Team forgot to track.
“We keep forgetting to
record our start time.”
Ideas hide in jokes.
“What if you wrote a haiku?”
Hee-hee!
Later that same day...
Devs wrote a haiku on the story card...
(after researching forms of Japanese
poetry)
When a story was complete...
...everyone wanted to hear the haiku.
Reading the haiku marked progress in
the iteration.
Later that iteration...
More taskswith tracked time.
Guess what?
CEO started coming to standups...
...to hear the haikus for the
completed stories!
(...and accidentally kept up on progress.)
Why did this work?
Planning and trackingis boring.
Poetry is interesting.
Rituals root process.
Punctuation.
Iterations weretwo-week
timeboxes.
Black boxes.
The teamwanted to connect.
Commencement chime!
Completion frog.
Development rhythm.
Ding!
Talking-talking-talking.
Baruuuupp!
Repeat until done.
Ceremony.
Planning Game.
Planning Meeting.
Estimate, shuffle, negotiate, choose.
Ends
not with a bang
but a whimper.
A stack of cards.
Presentation.
“I have in my hand...”
Zen stories.
Always “strangely appropriate.”
Why did this work?
Endingsneed
marking.
Or celebration.
Tradition.
Putting the “a” in team.
Painful planning meeting.
“Free drinks!”
Everyone showed up.
Next planning meeting...
“So, what timeare we drinking?”
“When do you want
to start?”
Why did this work?
You’ve got me.
But it did!
Time after time.
Happy accident.
Inject whimsy?
Discover whimsy.
Discover delight.
Can’t force it.
Don’t force it.
Roll around in it.
Listen.
Capture.
Evolve.
