One thing I really miss in Agile is having long, incomplete, boilerplate documents for me to “sign-off”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I like to write code and deliver working software quickly, but even more I LOVE\u00a0to\u00a0read documents and like nothing better than to spend long days before a glowing flat-screen reading incomprehensible nonsense carefully crafted to appear complete and correct while still being essentially content-less.\u00a0 Doesn’t matter what they are about, as long as they have small type and lots of words.\u00a0\u00a0Of course, nothing is further from the truth.\u00a0 If I want to read nonsense then I’ll read Edward Lear.\u00a0 Or my own writings.<\/p>\n
Even more, I love to take responsibility for documents that I did not write.\u00a0 It gives me the feeling that I am a grown-up.\u00a0 But apparently,\u00a0I am very unsophisticated regarding sign-offs.\u00a0 Or I was until recently…<\/p>\n
I had one CEO show me the policy for documents at his organization (let’s call it “Anonymous Inc”)\u00a0where there were 3 sign-off statements for\u00a0a manager to sign on any document requiring her approval.\u00a0 Oh joy!!!\u00a0 It is in the spirit of Extreme Documents, I suppose.\u00a0 If one signature is good, why not dial it up and try three?\u00a0 More is always better.\u00a0 In his defense, he was showing this to me as an example of something he wants to abolish – he understood the absurdity of it.<\/p>\n
This typical sign-off is for the\u00a0manager-type to “approve” the document.\u00a0 In software development this often indicates\u00a0that others can rely on this document as being “okay to use for doing whatever it is they do next based on this document”, and that it is Complete and Correct.\u00a0 This is actually the\u00a0third signature to apply after the next two required signatures have been taken care of.<\/p>\n
At\u00a0Anonymous Inc, besides approving the document you are also required to sign-off that you\u00a0have read the document.\u00a0 You’d think that approving something implies that you read it.\u00a0 Guess what?\u00a0\u00a0Apparently this isn’t as common as you might think, at least not at Anonymous Inc.\u00a0 I suppose the “I have read this” signature\u00a0solves the problem of someone later on saying “I just signed it, but\u00a0I didn’t read it – if I knew what was in it I would not have signed it”.\u00a0\u00a0 I suspect that a lot of documents get “approved” without the approver having actually read it,\u00a0and VP’s and upper management can always say “I was so busy I had my underling read it – he said is was okay so I signed it.\u00a0 Let’s fire him, okay?”<\/p>\n
Okay – “I approve this document”\u00a0might make sense in some organizations.\u00a0\u00a0“I have read it” at least keeps some people a bit more honest, I suppose – I’m not sure it would.\u00a0 But “I understand it” is something I just do not understand.\u00a0 Still, it is a very fun idea, and Anonymous Inc is all about fun.\u00a0\u00a0Still,\u00a0just because I say “I understand” doesn’t mean I do.\u00a0 Any parent knows that.\u00a0 “I understand” can also mean “shut up already”.\u00a0But then, what do I know?<\/p>\n
Have fun out there, and be careful when you sign-off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I love Document Driven Development One thing I really miss in Agile is having long, incomplete, boilerplate documents for me to “sign-off”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I like to write code and deliver working software quickly, but even more I LOVE\u00a0to\u00a0read documents and like nothing better than to spend long days before a glowing flat-screen reading incomprehensible nonsense carefully crafted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agile-stuff","category-general-stuff","category-waterfall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":798,"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions\/798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}