Turning to the Turing Test for Agile
On June 7, 2014, the Russian-made computer program known as Eugene Goostman passed the Turing Test.
This was a monumental step in the progression of artificial intelligence development, despite many debating how significant of an event it was in the grand scheme of robotics and computers.
It was monumental because it forced everyone to take a step back and ask how far we’ve come, where we still need to go, and if the path we set out on is still the path we want to take.
It was only after reading an article by Joe Townsend on the role of the Agile Manifesto that I began to merge the two ideas in my head. What if there were some kind of a Turing Test for agile teams? A test that could separate those who are just mechanically following the process and those who are emoting the agile essence?
Just as the Turing Test asks for more than 30 percent of unbiased participants to unknowingly mistake a computer interaction for one with a human, shouldn’t at least 30 percent of outsiders be able to look in on an agile team and think they are profoundly agile?
In order to make someone think a team is agile, the team would have to not only strive for the four main values of the Agile Manifesto, but also outwardly exhibit them:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
No one said being 100 percent agile is easy, and adhering whole-heartedly to all of the values all of the time can be downright impossible, but maybe if we get to a point where we can fool a third of the people around us, we can start to actually fool ourselves.
Agile isn’t just adhering to the values or common practices associated within the movement. Agile is more than that. This is akin to how a computer isn’t human just because it adapts and computes like a human (but faster); it has to exude the emotion and feelings that go along with being a human.
The Turing Test was designed to show the progress we’ve made in technology and distinguish when a machine is able to not just compute but actually think. In order to truly be agile, not just fool ourselves and others, teams will need to think about the purpose behind agile. Then, live and breathe the emotion and feeling behind agile: developing better software.
Photo credit: Sjoerd Ferwerda
