Ted Williams was an Agilist

Welcome to my first blog post on A/agile. My disclaimer: I'm a proponent of A/agile, but not yet a paid practitioner. :-) That said, I'm a thinker and passionate about the subject I'm still learning about and I believe I can help add value to readers of this blog who might want to learn more about A/agile and project management. I welcome your questions and comments.

Since it is baseball Hall of Fame induction time, I was thinking about the processes and methodologies used by great ball players to make them successful. Do you think Ted Williams thought about a methodology for hitting? Probably not in project management terms, but he did have a definite process that he used to approach hitting a baseball and he continued to refine his process and methods throughout his career. Williams was blessed with ability and he refined his abilities through discipline and repeatable processes that gave him great baseball success.

So, what does Ted Williams have to do with A/agile? Would Teddy Ballgame call himself a Baseball player or a baseball player? I bet Ted would have said he was a hitter and a ball player and it didn’t matter how you put it, just throw the ball. The same approach needs to be taken when looking at A/agile methods and tools. If the tool can help you and your project, then study it, understand the tool and the underlying philosophy of A/agile and project management and then apply it as it fits your current project.

There are plenty of opinions, criticisms, and proponents of A/agile, but whatever you call it you need to realize that the concepts of A/agile have existed in various forms with and without a name(s) for decades. In my mind, A/agile is a set of tools that can help people, teams, and organizations achieve success. If there is something wrong with that, please let me know. :-)

See what Steve McConnell had to say about using Agile methods.


The views expressed on this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, Robbins-Gioia.