The Difference Between Agile and the 1990s Waterfall Mindset

The biggest difference where you can really feel it is that agile just accepts uncertainty. So if there's something happening, agile has a practice that helps you change direction and pick up speed again. It's not all about sprints or whatever, these are just implementation details.

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René is a Principal Cloud Solution Architect - Engineering (CSA-E) and technical lead for Azure DevOps and software development processes at Microsoft in Germany. In his role as CE, he helps customers adopt good development practices and processes as well as understanding the principles of DevOps. As an Azure DevOps expert, René trains customers in using the DevOps toolchain and shows ways to integrate Azure DevOps into existing heterogeneous environments.

Before his start at Microsoft in late 2008, René had been working as a developer of enterprise logistic systems for almost ten years.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:05] René’s start of his career and how he got into programming.

[5:20] How does René define the real difference between the 1990s waterfall mindset and the agile mindset, just from a process perspective?

[7:49] How DevOps is an evolution of Agile.

[9:13] What is DevOps all about?

[11:29] The three ways of DevOps as described in The Phoenix Project:

Maximize flow or system thinking.
Amplify feedback loops.
The culture of continuous experimentation and learning.

[16:52] The importance of creating a natural cadence in your iteration.

[17:16] What’s the best way to standardize across different teams?

[21:13] Choosing the right tool at the right point in time.

[24:10] What type of test automation does René find himself recommending?

[27:50] To René, the most important thing is to get your code right. In addition, unit testing also has a very positive impact on your architecture and design because you're building a testable product.

[28:50] What is Rene’s view on open telemetry in a DevOps mindset?

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