Mar 09 2009
My driving instructor knows agile
My AA driving instructor Jason actually knows agile even better some IT professionals. I started learning “driving in the UK” from him about a month ago. After several classes, I found that he was a really good instructor and always put safety in front everything else. He even surprised me with his understanding of basic lean and agile principles. Let me tell the story.
We had a class last Saturday, I was quite tired before driving so I could not concentrate on following every instruction or make necessary changes. So he stopped me and said that
when you drive from office to home, you don’t need think of what will happen along the whole journey. As long as you go for the right direction you only focused on from where you are to the next junction or roundabout. The reason is that there is going to be change ahead so do not think of too much about too far away. Keep watch out what is happening in front of you. Thinking of mistake that you made would not help you to drive better when you are on the road. Concentrate making it right next time rather than thinking it over.
I was surprised because what he said sounds like an agile training session rather than driving lesson. Let’s have a look at how well his thought matches basic lean and agile principles
| Jason’s thought | Lean/agile principles and practices |
|---|---|
| Drive from office to home, go for the right direction | Goal oriented, see the whole system, set a clear goal and direction |
| Focus on where you are to the next junction or roundabout | Iterative development, focus on one iteration a time |
| There is going to be change ahead so do not think of too much about too far away. Keep watch out | Change is inevitable. Continuously communicate and collect feedback, adaptively project management |
| Forget the mistake that you made when you are on road, make it right next time. | Continuously improve the process and plan |
It is very interesting when you see people from other industry or lead a complete different life actually have exactly the same understanding of how to do things right. I feel that it was valuable to pay a driving instructor’s rate and also get agile consulting service although I do not really need it 
