We don’t need software engineering religion, we need software engineering science!

During the Scan-Agile ’09 conference there was a lot of discussion about why Agile works and if a specific flavor of it would be better than other flavors (you know, the Scrum vs Kanban fight).

Despite those surface issues, there was a deeper debate going on. Why does Agile work? And in what context should we use certain practices? The essence of this dialogue was, in my view about what we really understand or know about Software Development.

Many of us came to Agile from different backgrounds. Some of us are closer to the development disciplines (testing and coding), others are closer to project management/management or product management.

The common thing is: we believe, based on our experience and observation that Agile is a better way to develop software. But why is that so? Where is the evidence, and what parts of it work in certain contexts?

The core of this dialogue is about science. We need the scientific process and scientifically proven theories to learn. That’s how we learn as a species!

That’s why I found this presentation so important. Even if I disagree with somethings that are stated there. The debate must start, we must stop practicing blind religion with our industry. We need to get scientific!

Hopefully many of you agree…