Getting Carried Away Is Not Agile
Today I made a big mistake for which I am quite embarrassed. Prior to kicking off the currently story that Vlad and I are working on, we had a meeting with the client in which it was pointed out that allocating Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs) and other gas by products were not immediately required to a be allocated using priorities. However, Vlad was in late today and I was flying solo . I had some of the basic scenarios done. I thought I was on a "roll". Noted down my equivalence classes that needed to be covered and started writing tests for NGL allocation. Hit a roadblock (perhaps the same one the client may have thought of initially).
I got impatient as to how this scenario would be handled by the business people. I started looking for the client who was in meetings for the next couple of hours. I didn't want my motivation go down for this story so I was eagerly waiting for my moment to talk to the client about solving this problem. My eyes lit as I saw him coming down the hall. But at this point, one of the BAs mentioned "Harps, aren't we supposed to not worry about that scenario for now?"
Ofcourse, that's what Agile says too...but what happened to me? Why did I forget? - I was partnerless and I got carried away, that's what happened. If Vlad was with me, chances are he would have pointed that out to me on the onset and we would have channelled our resources somewhere else.
Anyhow, I think I am spoiled after working in pairs. But overall I think it is good. It frees the mind to worry about critical problems rather than trivial matters that may clog our mind but are very easily visible to your partner.
I am sure I will be in other embarrassing situations in future, but I am sure I will have good excuses :-)
Ciao!
H.
