day 1149: Staying Agile

"No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us."

Back in the the 1950's an approach to software development was created. Back then it was called, "Iterative and Interactive Development". Over the years it was refined and used on many projects. Over time it also took on the name of "Agile Development." Through time software engineers have reported that 88% of the users feel more productive, 77% see the quality improvements on the systems where it is deployed and best yet, 78% report an increase in business stakeholders satisfaction. I have gotten the opportunity to work with teams who have employed the principles of Agile Development and for the leaders of this movement it looks a lot like a business religion. It has a deep philosophy, rules of engagement, a common language, and a deep set of beliefs by users.

In fact, I wish that we as followers of Jesus always had the same commitment and rigor to our beliefs as developers who use the Agile Development process. IID, or Agile, was developed to bring predictability, repeatability, standardization and simplification to a very complex system. It is a great metaphor to our lives and how we live out our lives within our work. Life is full of randomness and can sometimes feel just the opposite of the predictable and standard that we would like to have. What we can do as believers though is use the process standards that God has given us to become more "agile" in our lives. We start with a firm belief and faith in Jesus and our commitment to follow Him as our Savior. From there, He invites us to communion with Him in His Word and our prayers. These, along with the fellowship with other believers provide us with predictable standards; a life process to follow and a community of others who are developing themselves to be better at bringing glory to God in all that that is done. Just like why a software development process was created, the same can be said of what God has given us. Sounds like it is time for us to go to our own life keyboard and start our new development process, today.

Philippians 3: 13-14 (New Living Translation)