In Conversation with Tim Ottinger

We face real-world challenges where straightforward answers provided in rule books are in conflict with empirical evidence. That’s where Tim helps us understand these nuances and demystifies the problem space.

Our Slack group “Agile Commune” contains many insightful conversations with Tim. We’re publishing some as part of “In Conversation with Tim Ottinger” series. Looking forward to your comments and experiences on these topics.

People talk about CI (Continuous Integration) and CD (Continuous Delivery) in the same breath but may not be aware of their differences: Continuous Integration in itself is not Continuous Delivery.

Similarly, people used to releasing multiple features in a rollout may find it difficult the need of multiple deployments in a day OR multiple releases for a feature.

So let’s hear from Tim more on Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, and DevOps!

We keep facing real world challenges in Agile world. For some challenges, the rule-books provide straightforward answers but empirical evidences show the contrary. That’s where Tim steps in and helps us in understanding the nuances and demystifying the problem space.

In recent past, we have had many such conversations with Tim on our Slack group “Agile Commune”. All those are full of insights and very helpful. We’re making some of them public as part of “In Conversation with Tim Ottinger Series“. Looking forward for your comments and experiences on these topics.

Shrikant: Hi Tim. The tools (like Scrum, Kanban, TOC, XP etc) are to solve business problems. They themselves are not the goal. How do you define agility?

Tim: To me “Agility is a means to an end, not an end unto itself.”

I would say that agility is a process goal, not a business goal.

To be able to change direction at the drop of a hat is powerful — provided your organization plans to do some pivoting.

Agile methods have the goal of creating some agility in the business, or at least the conditions making it possible.

Some methods are better at using agility than others.

But remember that a skateboard is more agile than a freight train, but a freight train is bigger and faster than a skateboard.

Be sure you know what you want.

Demystifying Continuous Delivery

In Conversation with Tim Ottinger Series: Should We Really Care for Agile Maturity?