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What if Agile is obsolete?
What if the forcing function is specification driven AI development?

In October 1999 Kent Beck’s book Extreme Programming Explained is published; in February 2001 the agile manifesto was signed. Both were driven by the very real need to remove the latency between specification and working software.

Prior to this software was developed using a variety of Waterfall methods - in simple terms comprehensive written specifications were created for a complete system, these specifications were then turned over to developers who created code to make the specification working software. The problem was the latency between specification creation and working software. The end users were required to imagine what they’d like the software to do and how they wanted the software to do it (what we would now call UX). The developers would then program the system and the end users would validate that the system did what the specification called for. But… Systems became increasingly complex and development time increased with that complexity. The latency introduced by this created a fundamental problem - it took too long for end users to realize the specification wasn’t actually what they needed or, increasingly, that the specification was no longer relevant to the work being done by the time the software was ready for validation. The solution was to decompose the specification into small, rapidly implementable units to remove the lag, generate rapid feedback and iterate toward the right specification and software system at the same time.

This is a something I’ve been struggling to write for several months now. It never seems to get at exactly what I’m trying to get at; which is, in part, caring as performance, the expectation that there are things we have to care about - specifically in the context of hustle culture, and so much more…

But I think what it boils down to is this:

The explicit expression of NOT CARING about things you are “supposed to” is a fundamentally healthy and mindful way to clear space for the things you actually do care about.

If you’re a business leader evaluating AI investments, you’ve likely sat through countless vendor pitches promising to “transform your operations” or “unlock unprecedented efficiency.” You’ve probably also noticed that most AI implementations fail to deliver on these promises, not because the technology doesn’t work, but because organizations treat AI as just another technology deployment.

AI is not a technology implementation. It’s a Labor Strategy.

Understanding this distinction is critical to capturing the extraordinary value AI can create and avoiding the expensive mistakes that sink most AI initiatives.

A few weeks ago Let’s Encrypt announced that they would no longer be sending email notifications for expiring certificates. The reasoning is sound. So now what?

Well, if you depend on Let’s Encrypt and certbot for your certificates hopefully you’ve already set up auto-renewal for your non-manual certificates.

For those of us using manual renewal authentication methods (DNS entry, webroot file, etc) who have not automated certificate renewal and who rely on Let’s Encrypt emails to notify you it is time to renew - I’ve got a solution.

In 1998 I was sitting at the bar of Frankie, Johnnie and Luigi Too! on El Camino Real in Mountain View (the original - if you know you know) talking about CRM - this was when Clarify and Siebel were dominant - and all the potential business benefits that could be achieved when business were able to really know their customers and serve them as individuals. One of my coworkers said – “But, customers are never going to share that data”.