An agilist's haiku
Speaking of Agile, Agile Haikus
In 2019 I was talking to a manager of a large IT organization. The manager had recently gone to a leadership class. One of the exercises in the class was to create three bumper stickers that describe yourself. I thought that was a brilliant exercise.
At that same time I was reading and writing haikus and began to see that a haiku could be a unique, effective and memorable way to capture an idea or concept. An earlier example of this can be found in the tale of a struggling IT project told in "Ten Project Haiku" by Rick Brenner. "Ten Project Haiku" was published in "Amplifying Your Effectiveness - Collected Essays" in the year 2000.
Well, I took the idea of the three bumper stickers and I changed it just a bit, instead writing a haiku that describes, to me, the essence of agile, adding a supporting image or photograph and an explanation to tie it all together.
Do you know how difficult it is to find a photo of a car with bumper stickers that doesn’t insult or enrage someone? This is the best I could do. Clearly this person loves The Jonas Brothers. Okay, maybe this still enrages some of you.
Take a little risk. Appreciate the journey. Create, share and learn.
Take a little risk – Analyze/hypothesize/validate, just do it in small pieces. Take risks that sting a little if you fail, but not so big they cause any real damage. Work in small chunks.
Appreciate the journey – because the journey might end sooner than we originally planned. Not because something bad happened, but because we reach a point where we realize we got what we needed, and we can now move onto other things.
Create, share and learn – Ultimately, that’s our real goal, to continually learn and we do that by continually creating and sharing.
I'm interested in what you think of using a haiku to explain an idea or concept. Also, what do you think of the combination of the haiku, image and story/explanation? Comment away, or as the last line of the haiku says let's create, share and learn.