I promise that I will do my best
To do my duty to God and to the Queen
To help other people
And to keep the Cub Scout Law.~ The Cub Scout Promise
I repeated that phrase, which I knew verbatim, each week for a good portion of my childhood. I knew that the organisation’s law was that “Cub Scouts always do their best, think of others before themselves, and do a good turn every day”. I tried to live by these principles. I had an arm full of badges (my favourite was the chess badge which featured a knight).
Is agile like the Cubs? There’s not a woggle or cloth cap in sight, but there are similarities: there is a set of core values that we have signed up to and 12 principles which we aim to follow in our daily practices. We are not expected to be able to repeat The Agile Manifesto verbatim and we do not put our middle three fingers to our temples to swear allegiance to Kent Beck, et al. However, the Manifesto’s core values and principles are the bedrock for many of us and it worries me that many people who are trying to be agile don’t know the Manifesto.
Have you read The Agile Manifesto? Have you read it recently? Do you remember the values and principles?
… Or is it at the back of your mind along with the Cub Scout Promise and Law?
Feeling confident you know your stuff? Then take my test on the The Agile Manifesto.