Politics and Religion in Agile Development

Abstract

Politics and Religion are traditionally taboo topics in polite after-dinner conversation. In this panel, we are going to discuss taboo topics in agile software development. Technical teams ought to choose technology based on the immediate needs of the current project and organization. But we all know that technology and methodology choices are often driven by people enhancing their resume – this conflict can start religious wars! On agile projects, we ask our customers to prioritize stories purely by business value, as if this is a straightforward thing to do and company politics are irrelevant. We need to recognize that projects that only deliver working software can still be classed as failures from an organizational perspective. If we pretend that the political dimension does not exist on agile projects then we cannot develop and share practices that help us handle these situations. This panel brings industry professionals to share their perspectives and experiences, the audience should come prepared to both ask and answer questions.