EDITORIAL

* * *    CHALLENGING QUESTIONS    * * *

Six weeks ago, a Spanish broadcasting station contacted us to schedule an interview.

We found it interesting that the media station was not from the Agile space and had nothing to do with technology. Instead, they were in the political and business arena –a think-tank type organization.

However, what caught our attention was the closing argument they used when they first contacted us: “Hemos seguido agile-thoughts por algunos meses. Casi todos y cada uno de los artículos tiene el potencial para cambiar el curso de organizaciones y de las personas que trabajan en ellas. La publicación es una herramienta grandiosa para cualquier tipo de empresa, de cualquier tamaño. Es difícil creer que sea gratis y que su contenido sea honesto, puro, y sin patrocinios, por ende, sin sesgo.”

[…”We have followed agile-thoughts for a few months. Almost every article has the potential to alter the course of organizations as well as the people working there. The publication is an impressive tool for any type of organization, of any size. It is difficult to believe that it is free and that its content is honest, pure, and not sponsored, therefore, free of bias.”…]

We accepted the invitation with two caveats:

1. The focus of the interview should be on the authors and their topics, instead of on the publication itself.
2. Comments or questions about commercial frameworks, as well as the invisible, negative effects of their marketing machines, must be avoided.

As usual, some questions were received in advance while others were answered on the fly.

• How do you think Agile initiatives differ across continents?
• How do religious and social structures affect the implementation of Agile practices?
• How does geographical location influence openness towards running experiments and tolerance towards failure?
• To what degree does the meaning of words such as ‘transformation’ and ‘value’ change between Asia and North America, Africa and Europe?

A set of questions that became particularly challenging to answer included the words “favorite” and “best.” “What is your favorite article so far?” “What’s the best topic featured since the inception of agile-thoughts?” “What piece made you smile when you received it?”

After revisiting each magazine’s issue, holding conversations, debating a number of times, and even setting two voting systems, we realized that we were unable to build a favorite top-20 list –much less a top-10 or a top-5:

• Most of the articles had at least one amazing insight that placed them within “the list”.
• Over 90 percent of the pieces had some hidden magic that caused them to make the cut.
• Every piece offered a bold, powerful perspective worthy of being recognized.

So, instead of building the list by ourselves, we decided to send a survey to 2,000 of agile-thoughts’ friends and readers asking about their favorite articles so far. Here are the results…