« Agile is not enough

I’ve trying to be an agile developer at least since 2005, I still remember the presentation that Craig Larman gave to the audience of the ’05 Milan Java Conference about Waterfall Vs Agile development. I was somehow agile already, but from that day I’ve took the task more seriously reading books and trying to work for companies using agile methodologies.

I think then that sometimes I’ve been agile, especially in a couple of projects at ThoughtWorks.

However I always had the feeling that wasn’t enough. If we were successful in projects, if our code was readable and nice wasn’t only because of agile.

Lots of people also used (and use) to say that agile works because there are good people and good teams working with agile, that might make sense (I personally think that if you’re “good” you probably choose agile methodologies) but doesn’t really explain properly the “coincidence” of agile-good people-successful projects.

Then I’ve discovered the Craftsmanship Movement, their manifesto, their discussions on their mailing list, I’ve read the The Craftsman by Richard Sennet and everything become clear.

My conclusions are that I’ve chosen agile because I was trying to be a craftsman even before knowing anything about agile, that I’ve always tried to improve, to do a good job for the sake of doing it.

I also think that some people will never been craftsman and trying agile for them will be harder or even harmful.

Craftsmanship is behind my need of searching betters way to deliver software and it helps to make my agility more effective.