As I wrap up the iTunes release with the developers, I’ve come to think of the journey so far. Not because I’m reflective like that. Because Apple asked me to pay them their fees for their developer network!
Just like every framework becomes a trend, so does the criticism of it. I was very keen to get under the hood of Agile and Scrum when I joined a software company.
I’ve been interested in the ways companies produce things for my whole life. As a kid, it made me tick how adults came up with toy ideas until in around I want to say 1998-1999 I worked for Bluebird Toys as a Colour Co-ordinator, which was a fancy title for someone who painted prototype toys. I didn’t get a lot of leeway to develop toys. Without going off topic too much, my manager and I would often make our own toy designs that the others would cringe at. Such as the ‘Cryogenic Kids’ which were tiny dolls painted with tattoos inside liquid-filled LED-lit tubes, or fantasy figures for offbeat books like Elrich and Hawkmoon. Conan, or 2000ad.
I often wondered how an idea on paper became a ‘real’ thing or how a simple plan came into fruition. I asked one of our engineers. ‘Engineers’ he said. ‘Lots of them in a long line and they make it work at the end of the process’
Fast forward 20 years and I wanted to know who to get from the paper idea to the end result without a large pile of money or a corporate structure and I found out how using Agile. Mostly, simply, the MVP.
Back to criticism. I sometimes hear people say that Waterfall was better or work with people who do not understand iterative design and simple always want it ‘fix’ when really they want infinite development time. The basic concept of the MVP is what put a 5 year dream into production. By starting with a very simple outline of the product that I wanted, I was able to focus on the core design. The application itself is lacklustre. That’s absolutely fine. It doesn’t have every function available to it. Also fine. But it exists. It exists in a world where it didn’t exist before and that was down to engaging with methodology and letting the methodology work and not my own nagging perceptions. Like my previous post, I am on my way to my first big (internal) feature which is building an administrative backend, so I can start cleaning up the system or indeed actually being able to physically intervene if things break. I don’t think you need to stick to every framework that exists, but I think it’s ok to respect and appreciate it where it counts.
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