Risk and Agile

Confused of Calcutta writes about risk and Agile:

Once you switch focus from content to process, agile techniques don’t stand a chance. Agile in a “content” perspective leads to the Baconian “A man that starts with doubts shall end in certainties”; agile in a “process” perspective leads to the other Baconian statement “A man that starts with certainties shall end in doubts”. These two positions are polar opposites.

As Douglas and Wildawsky stated, people act as if they know the risks they face despite not knowing them; they then disparage people who act to discover and potentially mitigate hitherto unknown risks. The Emperor’s New Clothes.

More later.

I’ll be looking for what’s coming. This reminds me of one of my themes about Agile: that it’s about acting to change the context more than it is about adapting to a context. What Mr. Rangaswami brings to my mind is the degree to which that context is always unknown.

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