Fred George, TweetConsultant, Forward

Biography: Fred George

Fred George is a consultant with over 43 years experience in the industry including over twenty years doing object programming and over a dozen years doing Agile/XP. He counts at least 70 languages with which he has written code. A veteran of the IBM-Microsoft wars, Fred did early work in computer networking, LAN's, GUI's and objects for IBM. As an independent consultant from 1991-2003, he counted HP, Morgan-Stanley, American Express, IBM, and USAA among his clients. He gave the first Agile/XP experience report at OOPSLA in 1999 about an embedded system done in Java, and has mentored many clients in use of objects in Java under an XP process. He has shared the stage at JavaOne with Martin Fowler, acting as his foil, and assisted in XP Immersion sessions with Kent Beck, Ron Jeffries, and Robert Martin. Fred spent a year as a visiting lecturer at N.C. State University teaching Java programming to over 800 undergraduates, with a generous dose of object design, patterns, and XP practices thrown in. Fred joined ThoughtWorks in 2003, delivering yet more projects using agile processes. He has worked with clients in four countries since then, including a ten-month assignment in India (where he founded ThoughtWorks University), four months of projects in China, and a post in the London office. In 2007, he joined the London Internet advertising firm, Forward, bringing Agile practices to all aspects of the business. He has been writing about the post-agile work at Forward under the moniker of Programmer Anarchy. He believes in objects, Lean processes, fun in programming, and the client's successes. He holds a bachelors degree from N. C. State University in Computer Science, and a masters degree from MIT in the Management of Technology. Oh, and he still writes code!

Twitter @fgeorge52

Presentation: TweetProgrammer Anarchy

Track: Solution Track Thursday / Time: Thursday 10:20 - 11:30 / Location: Volmer Rooms

The Agile movement shifted the relationship between clients and developers in a profound way. In waterfall processes, clients specified large amounts of functionality, then nervously faded into the background until the fateful day-of-delivery. With Agile, developers strove to engage with clients continuously, and deliver much more frequently against their needs. A new trust was established.

At the Forward Internet Group in London, we are implementing a second major shift between clients and developers. The trust of the clients in developers evolves into a broader trust of the developers to deliver business value without resorting to a series of well-defined stories. In essence, the business has empowered the developers to do what they think is right for the business. This model, popularized by Facebook, has several labels, but the one we prefer for our flavor is Programmer Anarchy.

We will start with stock Agile, and begin to apply environmental factors that led us to drop "standard" Agile practices. We will also watch as well-defined Agile roles evaporate completely as other environmental factors are applied. Finally, we will arrive at Programmer Anarchy, an organization often following none of the standard Agile practices, having no BA or QA roles, and even missing any managers of programmers.

We will summarize our environmental factors, and postulate on the required and optional factors.

We will make bold, controversial assertions. We will back up these assertions with actual experiences.

Keywords: Agile, post-Agile, Anarchy, Empowered, Forward, No managers, No testers, No business analysts
Target Audience: Agile practitioners (developers and coaches) will be interested in this talk as we subscribe to the Agile principles but few of the practices. Management will find the enabling factors enlightening, giving them ideas they may apply to their existing teams.