Too many of the methodological tools end up about the practice instead of the work—necessarily, as it’s practice that can be captured in software, never the creative work that the software assists. That’s not bad, that’s just how tools work. Instead, the more that agile practice is about the self-governance of a team, the more I agree with it.
There should be a word for that feeling you get when an older person — and not much older, so quickly are things changing — shames him or herself by telling young people how to live. I’d vote for Bedeutungslosigkeitschmach, or “irrelevance shame,” (made up with the help of Google translate) or perhaps Rünschmerz, the horrifying gut pain one experiences watching Andy Rooney. Whatever it’s called, Franzen brought it in buckets.
