Re: Re: SIP is not Takt Time

On Monday, February 10, 2003, at 8:02:13 AM, Dan Palanza wrote:

> I do disagree that the discussion got away from SIP. Where the discussion 
> went and where you would bring us back to are both important, but 
> different. A shortened feedback loop typically found in lean manufacturing 
> is solid and a sound and sound way to build software, particularly as you 
> carefully articulated it. Where the discussion went for me asks a 
> complementary question: what is the greater goal within which a proposed 
> SIP is a part?

> Imagine XP software that is being built on the shortest possible SIP 
> cycles. Would that tell the buyer of software that the right software being 
> built? It may, but I don't believe it necessarily does.

Here is where I feel us separating. If SIP is time from feature defined to
feature in hands of user, then in fact short SIP will tell us a lot about
whether it's the right software: the user will say "No, wrong, not it".
That's why the Customer Team in XP is supposed to include real users.

> Something more is 
> needed. My argument is that there is an issue of a greater whole that is 
> complementary to and an essential part of the XP and SIP facts.

I'm not sure what greater whole you are mentioning. Feature idea to feature
in hands of end user is pretty wide. What else are you trying to encompass?

> A sound 
> bookkeeping framework creates a real time whole image of a project in which 
> the story cards are elements of a language that in due time tell this 
> greater story. The stories that are not yet in process are represented by 
> estimates. There are many examples of this both from building and 
> manufacturing that I could share.

You have driven into the weeds here by adding in your favorite pony, or
some metaphor that works. Bookkeeping is a way, not a truth. What is the
additional information about a software project that you'd like to track,
outside of SIP?

From the intelligible part of the above quoted para, I guess you are saying
that the stories actually undertaken and their fate in the hands of users,
as optimized according to SIP, are part of the story. Another part is the
stories "contemplated": written on cards but not yet committed into detail.

A product vision in story cards; a movie vision in storyboard, with scenes
not yet shot and perhaps never to be; architectural sketches of home
features or room treatments perhaps never to be built: these seem to me to
be analogous.

Yet there may be an important difference as well. It is possible, some of
us claim, to produce software effectively and well by taking the most
important story and shipping it. No one claims that for a movie or a house.

It may be that bookkeeping will one day help us address the comparison of
those things. Today, to me, bookkeeping is just a word with an odd
complement of o's and k's and e's. You keep inviting us in, but your home
has no path from the street, and no visible door. Until those are built, I
can't stop over to your place. Yet I still seem to be able to think about
these ideas somewhat effectively. Maybe we should continue to deal with the
ideas and let the bookkeeping happen when it's ready?

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
Bang, bang, Jeffries' silver hammer came down upon their heads ...


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