In software development, we talk a lot about the importance of Agile and DevOps. Agile aims for rapid releases positively encourages involvement from customers and other stakeholders and splits work into smaller iterations, releasing as soon as possible. DevOps extends it by introducing cross-functional team collaboration and automation, enabling teams to always have a stable build ready to deploy.

That’s the short version and there’s a huge range of books and frameworks out there to read so that anyone, anywhere–apparently–can just start doing it. The danger is that if you follow them too closely, processes can actually become too rigid, so you end up losing the agility you’re striving for. I always get suspicious when theories in books are read and regurgitated completely without thinking about the actual situation on the ground. I’d much rather have a conversation, write up our notes, try it out and see how it can be improved.