Category: courage

Courage

March 31, 2009 by Janusz Marcin Gorycki

Photo (c) Janusz Gorycki

Extreme Programming postulates, that courage is one of the fundamentally important virtues of an agile developer. I would augment this postulate and claim that it is, together with talent, THE most important one.

Why? Simple. Courage lets you overcome any and all obstacles that may stand in a way of developing a fine piece of software.

For example, I have seen a lot of cases where a programmer would shy away from an interesting project, because thay claim that thay lacked knowledge and expertise in the particular area. Or – the subject matter seemed too hard. They felt not „worthy” to try. Let me be a bit controversial and say: lack of knowledge does not matter. The courage to learn new stuff does.

Ask and Thou Shall Receive

May 26, 2008 by JurgenAppelo

A Google search on the text "Ask and Thou Shall Receive" got me a few different references to Bible chapters, including Matthew 7:6-8, Luke 11:9-10 and John 16:24. It seems that the disciples were never shy of asking when they wanted something, and I cannot blame them.

Asking people for things you want really works!

Children Asking
There's a saying in my language (Dutch): "Wie vraagt wordt overgeslagen." It roughly translates to "Those who ask will be skipped". It is often used to get children te keep quiet when they're asking for sweets or presents. But my grandmother, a religious person herself, has fought against this idea. Several times she said to us: "Children that never ask, will not get what they want." She actually might have been referring to "Ask and Thou Shall Receive", either consciously or not.

XP Values: Courage

October 19, 2007 by Artem Marchenko

Extreme Programming values are the primary guidelines to be used whenever it is not clear how to resolve the particular situation. Value of courage is about acknowledging the fact that the best way to produce the best possible products is to be honest and transparent on all the possible levels from customer communication to the way you type code despite how uncomfortable the idea of high transparency might look like from the beginning. The courage is needed to admit the team and organization weaknesses.