Brian talked about fusion.. the community, the methodologies, the conferences. He went on to talk about the British cyberneticists of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. How they did really cool stuff… but nothing came of it. What was interesting is why:

• no institutionalized home (i.e. no university department of cybernetics)
• no common core set of techniques/practices
• no grooming of successors

He went on to liken the Agile community to those cyberneticists… do we face the risk of being considered a fad or a “lost art” in the not to distant future?

What about a home for Agile. We have a virtual home in the Agile Alliance.. but what about something more substantial.. Brian suggests taking over a university CS department.

Brian pointed out that if you hire a physicist you pretty much know what you’re getting. You know that they have a certain set of core skills. But what about hiring an Agile developer? Do they know TDD, do they know about CI? It’s hard to tell.. there is no clearly defined minimal definition of what it means to be an “agile developer”. There is hope, however, as the agile field is merging to some extent… might we someday soon have that core set of competencies defined?

Brian seemed especially concerned by the last point, and described how the Agile Alliance has set up an award for up & coming Agile thought leaders based on their contribution in the last year. Two awards or $5000 each. The first awards will be made Thursday morning.

Also, Bob Martin’s focus on Software Craftsmanship is an important move toward a sustainable way to groom successors to ensure that we don’t die off.

Before handing the microphone over to Bob Martin, Brian invited Jim Highsmith to talk about the new Agile Project Leadership Network. I think this is a very promising development.