Practices of An Agile Developer

I finished reading Practices of An Agile Developer last night. 

I thought it was a worthwhile investment though much of their recommendations can fall into the common-sense category.  Some of my favorite pieces of advice were:

Architects Must Write Code – I agree with a caveat.  I think it should be “Architects Must Write Production Code”.  My current company suffers from a failure of its staffing model – most of the best developers are tracked to architect and then write less and less production code  – soon their value to a given team diminishes and the POC codes samples they do churn out become less and less relevant.  For me, the architect is the part of the ship’s crew – not a drop-in guest star.

Yes:

No:

Be A Mentor – Some people I run across still view knowledge as a personal resource/asset that cannot be shared.  Perhaps I am too sanguine, but I believe that the way one gets better in anything is to find as many smart people to be around as possible and share as much as possible.  I guess it is related to the advice I give kids on the teams I coach – always find the best player on the other team and want to play them.  You get better by hanging with the best, not by crushing the worst.

Allow People to Figure It Out – This burned me last year – I was on a team with some underperforming people and by waiting for them to figure things out, the entire project suffered.  At a certain point, an individual needs to take responsibility for their contribution to the team – finding that line takes some experience.