Agile Grande, writing chapter 4
Dear reader, I know you’ve missed me. 😥💧I haven’t posted since December and that was 2019, a whole year-number away. I’m sitting in my studio seeing the Seattle spring sun chasing the winter blues away. Not that I’ve had time for winter blues. I’ve been busy with various this-es and thats-es and now I’ve started writing chapter 4. The chapter you’ve been waiting for. (Naturally, after 4 you’ll end up waiting for chapter 5 as well. 😜
If you’re a LeanPub reader of Agile Grande, I’ve been especially BeASTLY to you! And if you’re not a LeanPub reader, click here to become one so I can be BeASTLY to you too!
In chapter 4, we left the story (I’ll keep out spoilers) with Kartar struggling but closer to developing something to help management to overcome their biases. Unfortunately he’s got other problems too because Dharma had to be bailed out of jail and the Chinese Ministry of State Security (the Chinese spy agency) has sent a destroyer and an officer to track down how they’ve been embarrassed by being a party to blowing up America’s new border wall with Mexico. (The American president is quite upset.) MSS has sent their top officer, the beautiful and mysterious Daxian (call her Danni). She is an expert of an ancient systems thinking system called fengshui which she’s uses to hunt down the Party’s most wanted and she is hot on Kartar’s trail.
Unfortunately, dear reader (I’m getting to the BeASTLY part) at the end of chapter 3 Kartar appears to have come to a tragic end in the Arabian Sea.
“So that’s it?” you ask. “The story ends at chapter 3 then?”
Well, if you know me or have read Agile Noir (another novel where Kartar learned his Agile chops from a Hindu godman, available in the US, India, and China) then you’re going to be certain I’ve got a chapter 5 and a chapter 6 and….
So what’s coming in chapter 4? In it, you’ll learn the following:
- Systems thinking
- Whole Product Focus
- And the above bullets will happen despite Kartar appearing to be lost at sea, a Chinese destroyer on the hunt for him, and Mr. Cherneski taking apart Kartar’s cross-functional teams back in Long Beach
“So what the hell?” you might ask. “What am I going to do in the meantime while you’re writing chapter 4?”
Calm down. Calm down. Let’s not be hasty with the pointing device. Here is what I can offer you immediately:
- The Basics of System Modeling (video)
- System Modeling the novel Agile Grande and the Market Response (video)
- A series of interviews with the founders of Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) (Agile Thoughts podcast)
- Seattle LeSS Meetup (we are doing virtual meetings with Zoom and have had attendees from Canada and Australia)
And later, when I need a break from writing and software engineering, I’ll produce another systems modeling video that shows the entire systems model I used when designing Agile Grande’s story. It’ll be announced here at LancerKind.com when it’s ready.
Your pal,
Lancer Kind
