Personal note: I started this article about 9 months ago. Although it’s quite a fun article, I have become increasingly critical of the use of analogies to describe software development. My feeling is that analogies lead to assumption that may, or may not, be valid. So, rather than talk about building a bridge, a house or cooking Thai food I’d rather talk about software specific problems or situations.
After some personal doubt I finally decided to complete the article because it is amusing, if not insightful. I hope you enjoy the article. In the future I’ll endeavour to keep analogies far, far away.
Mae Phim is a small Thai restaurant in Seattle [1]. I went there with my colleagues last year and we were impressed with their speed of operations. Within the space of a few short minutes, we were able to place an order and received a hot, freshly cooked meal.
Despite the short duration, it was sufficient time for us to wonder if there were any lessons here to use in Agile software development. After all, if we were able to deliver software as rapidly and with the same high quality as Mae Phim delivers food then that would surely be a good thing.
An interesting observation was that the business model for Mae Phim is common to the business model of other Thai restaurants [especially those that cater to the lunchtime crowd who present their own set of unique challenges]. This article discusses some of the characteristics of their operation and discusses the applicability (or not) to developing software.
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Filed under: Agile Software Development, Cultural Change, Organisation Change, Patterns, Planning, Project Management, Scrum
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