Agilistaist Glossary

A

Abolishing testers

ultimately, testers can prove that Agile processes are just as prone to bugs as any other. The placebo effect is maintained with alternative strategies. See Hexaflexagonal Architecture and Quality is in the toilet and flushing

Agilista

one of us, not one of them. See How To Be An Agilista.

Anger

A way of reacting to someone's views to make their viewpoint seem less desirable. See I Am Not Shouting

Antagonist, The

blind to the benefits of anything that involves change. See Team Membership

B

Believer, The

blind to the failings and committed to the dogma, the bedrock of any Agile-attack on your organisation. See Team Membership

Believing

the central tenet of agile. See Seeing is believing.

Blameless culture

How to apportion blame without looking to be to blame for causing blame. See How to turn your company around

Blitz spirit

a traditional British response to attack, involving improved performance despite and because of the difficulties presented. See Keeping Your Job

Boolean

proof that something is true or false, undesirable for the Agilistalist who is spreading falsehood and placebo. See avoid boolean

Bottlenecking

how to use the deepest fears of a production environment to control them, much like Room 101 See Bottlenecking

C

Carpet Sweeper

A style of management involving a big rug and keeping problems out of sight. See How to turn your company around

Chicken

See pig

Claiming success

attaching any incidental successes to your reports to make you look good. Also attaching any unrelated successes. See Production Simulation

Confusion

A means of making people uncertain of whether they are right or wrong. Ultimately you get your way because you're the only person who isn't confused. See I Am Not Shouting

D

Defender, The

perverts the system by following it and adding all the things which would otherwise be replaced by it. See Team Membership

Distortion

How to make people see things your way without arguing the point, simply distort everything until it fits your viewpoint. See I Am Not Shouting

Documentation

unpleasant evidence of what you said you'd do, or what you actually did. See Avoid Documentation.

Dogma

the sure fire way to stick to your guns. Nobody can argue with dogma or they will look foolish. See Making People Feel Stupid.

Dojo

place of learning martial arts. What this has to do with software is anyone's guess. See The Muda of Muda.

Dou Da

A post failure meeting to redefine success. See Dou Da, the art of the retrospective

E

The Emperor's New Clothes

the story of a child who was so blind he couldn't see.

Extrapolation

If something is good, then it's worth extrapolating. See Extreme Programming, Ringfencing and Avoid Boolean

Extreme Programming

programming is turned from a serious engineering pursuit into a dangerous sport. SICK!

F

Fervour

When dogma meets belief.

First line of irritation

a protective group of Agilists put forward by an Agile-meister to protect him against the immediate threat of violence. See Not Getting A Smack In The Mouth

G

Gaijin

foreigner or other.

Gaming

enjoying your work by pretending it's all a game, even though people's livelihoods are at stake. Gaming is also the process of making yourself look better by improving only specific, measured, strategies.See Information Radiators and Game Theory

H

Haiku

a three line verse in 5, 7, 5 syllables which sums something up neatly. E.g. Agile is going\to destroy your company\if you will let it.

Hexaflexagonal architecture

An apparently impossible approach to testing. See Concave Hexaflexagonal Archictecture

I

Illusory progress

the suggestion of moving forward and gaining momentum without any evidence. Can be simulated by simply using stronger language and better excuses. See Reiterative Development

Iterative development

adding features in small almost imperceptible increments. See Reiterative Development

In-fighting

encourage this to take attention away from your empty promises. See Intangible Mist Mystery

Intangible Mist

a fog through which nobody can see your true purpose. See Intangible Mist Mystery

J

Jonah method

how to convey your own brand of uncommon sense. See Effecting Change.

K

Kasa

An umbrella. See also Poppins, Mary

Kata

another martial arts term relating to some sort of training. See The Muda of Muda.

Knee-Jerk Improviser

how creativeness on the spur of the moment can be a substitute for leadership. See The Knee-Jerk Improviser.

L

Local optimum

having reached the point where everything you can see seems to be working really well. Apparently this is not good enough. See Effecting Change.

M

Muda

a waste of something or other, usually your time. See The Muda of Muda and Ohno Not More Muda.

Mug, The

one of the well-intentioned souls paving the way to hell. See Team Membership

Mythical Man Month

the fallacy that some men can work 90 hour weeks without going insane. See The Mythical Man Month

Mythical Man Moth

the depressingly simple pest who flys into the light. See The Mythical Man Moth

N

Necessary Bullshit

The lamentably small amount of nonsense it takes to confuse the simple majority. See Necessary Bullshit

Non-leader

A style of management that's neither peer led nor dictatorial, but somewhere in between. See How to turn your company around

O

Ostrich, The

lets it all happen, regardless of the obvious consequences. See Team Membership

P

Passive Aggressive

holds everyone back with a string of semi-coherent excuses. Repressing a desire to kill. See Team Membership and The Yakisobi

Pig

What you want to be if you want to get anything done. The pig is committed. Sadly, pigs often die before breakfast. See also chicken and How To Be An Agilista (silly metaphors)

Placebo Effect

allows you to appear to be the best thing since sliced bread while the breadbin disintegrates

Pope, The

spiritual leader of the Agile cult. See Team Membership

Poppins, Mary

Chief Agilistaist and umbrella flyer. See Sugaring The Pill and Game Theory

Possessiveness

He who owns the process, owns everything. See I Am Not Shouting

Problem Absolving Position

Get yourself a company scapegoat. See Problem Absolving Position

Process

the most important thing in the world.

Production Simulation

make believe progress seen against the backdrop of a flimsy analogy with manufacture. See Production Simulation

Protagonist

instigator of trouble/Agile. See Team Membership

Pseudo-ML

a method of conveying no information using confusing, but apparently intelligable diagrams. See Pseudo-ML diagrams

Q

Quality is in the toilet and flushing

swirling away from you, but leaving the shit behind

R

Radiator (Information)

How to make the work of your team seem hot with lots of charts See Information Radiators.

Refactoring reality

reality, when spun correctly, will always be in your favour. See Production Simulation

Reiterative development

the process of repeating the same task in order to fix any problems that would lose you your job, while at the same time guaranteeing a perpetual need for your role. See Reiterative Development

Reporting (optimistic)

maintaining the effect of illusory progress by giving good reports, regardless of actual progress. See Production Simulation

Resistor

silent, virtually useless opposition to Agile, drags everyone down regardless. See Team Membership

Ringfencing

protect your position by placing artificial barriers around everything. See Avoid Boolean

S

Salmon method

Like the waterfall model, but uphill. See Parable Of The Yakisobi

Scapegoat

just follow the pointed fingers. If you look at the other end of the arm pointing the finger, you have the cause. See Team Membership

Shoehorning

How to ensure your unified-theory-of-everything includes anything that it shouldn't. See Shoehorning

Simple Majority

The large number of people in an organisation who are too stupid to see through manipulation See Simple Majority

Standards

that which you claim to be raising while simultaneously eroding and destroying all records of it. See Avoid Documentation.

Start the ball rolling

how to make irreversible decisions seem easy and invisible. See Team Membership, Protagonist and Jumanji

Suit (The Agile)

how incremental builds can ruin a good tailor. See The Agile suit.

Sugaring the pill

make bad news seem like proof of how good you are. See Sugaring the Pill

Sweetistics

how to make pseudo-science seem like it's based on rational evidence. Everything tastes nice with sweetistics. See Sweetistics

T

Theory of constraints

the idea that when you hold engineers back from their job they feel angry and constrained.

Truism

something undeniably true which you can say without any need to justify it. Truisms please people and are, largely, irrelevant. They are a useful tool. See Promising The World.

Toyota

the car in front. Also the model for any engineering ideal. See The Muda of Muda.

U

V

W

Waterfall

a method of software engineering which is like the natural flow of water... off the edge of a cliff and into oblivion. See The Agile suit.

White Book (the)

The mystical bible from which all Agile practices derive. Similar to The Beatles's "White Album".

World (the)

what you must promise. See Promising The World.

X

Y

Yakisobi

Fat woman. Useless, pointless, redundant. See Parable Of The Yakisobi

Z