The dog and the chicken

I can't shake this write up of Kent Becks views on best practices and processes<:

When asked if there any best practices he encourages people to follow at Facebook, he said (..) imagine talking to a dog. When you point a finger at a chicken, a dog wouldn’t understand. It will look at the finger, instead of the chicken. No matter how hard you point.

So, that is how he felt about best practices. The focus on best practice is dangerous. There is no point telling people what Facebook is tracking or doing, because that is the finger, not the chicken.

(..) He said, don’t look at the numbers or practices. That is the finger. The chicken is the sense of a shared and common goal. How you get there depends on each organization.

Just learn the practice and copy it. That is the finger. It is not the point.

There's some truth to it. And also not. You should not blindly copy because that's what X does or says. But I still think you should steal, copy and borrow from others to improve your own ways.

(I started this as a micro, but it turned into a ... mezzo?)

22.08.2019