Sunday, April 1, 2007

Agile banana box


Well, in July we 're moving to our new house. To avoid packing rush-hours, from time to time we already fill boxes with things we don't use regularly. Our neighbour works in a supermarket providing us with piles of empty banana boxes which have the right size and strength to avoid overload.

Last week Martine started with emptying our "library". Most of the books can be taken off-line for a few months, no problem. But my books on change management, methodology and software engineering ... that's my territory. So we agreed that I would take care of boxing these in.

Filling the boxes is not really a problem, piles of interesting books, but nothing I can't do without the next couple of months. From time to time I put a book aside "this one I have to keep at hand" ... after half an hour, the pile of books "I have to keep at hand" was enough to fill a box. That's good, this proves I've invested in the right books - sometimes Martine questions my "sponsoring" of Amazon.com;-)

Although it was not the intention, the vast majority of books "to keep at hand" are related to agile techniques. An Agile banana box. The idea of "just enough" methodologies filling up a banana box ... a strange thought isn't it. Is this a sign that these methodologies aren't that documentation averse after all. Or is it a sign of acceptance. Is our "industry" finally buying into getting things done.