63 Quotes by Jim Highsmith

Newtonian versus quantum, predictability versus flexibility, optimization versus adaptation, efficiency versus innovation – all these dichotomies reflect a fundamentally different way of making sense about the world and how to manage effectively within it.

Driving exploration is critical, but knowing when to stop is also. Product development is exploring with a purpose, delivering value within a set of constraints. Frequent, timeboxed iterations compel the development and product teams and executives to make difficult tradeoff decisions early and often during the project. Feature delivery contributes to realistic evaluations because product managers can look at tangible, verifiable results.

Documentation is not understanding, process is not discipline, formality is not skill.

When uncertainty is low, adaptive approaches run the risk of higher costs. When uncertainty is high, optimizing approaches run the risk of settling too early on a particular solution and stifling innovation.

If you want to be fast and agile, keep things simple. Speed isn’t the result of simplicity, but simplicity enables speed.

If we want to build great products, we need great people. If we want to attract and keep great people, we need great principles.

Agility is the ability to both create and respond to change in order to profit in a turbulent business environment.

Effective project leaders focus on people, product, and process – in that order. Without the right people, nothing gets built. Without a laser focus on product value, extraneous activities creep in. Without a minimum process framework, there can be inefficiency and possibly a little chaos.

Agile Project Management is an execution-biased model, not a planning-and-control-biased model.