Carsten Pitz: My wish for the SE community

At the end of the year, Carsten Pitz comments on the state of affairs in the SE community. Is the SE community really as closed as Carsten makes it out to be? Feel free to discuss in the comments!

The article is a bit provocative, but still fits in quite well with the holidays.

Guest article

Yesterday [18.12.2019] I was once again at the Cologne ScrumTable. Not just because it was the Christmas special. Not just because I wanted to see a few people again. But also because I had two suitable topics.

SE-Trends is a forum for systems engineers. So why am I telling you about a visit to a ScrumTisch?

This is about my wish: I would like the SE community to discuss results as openly as the agile community.

Carsten Pitz

Modeling Craftsmanship Meeting

I was with all of them Modeling Craftsmanship Meeting in the process. The atmosphere there is already moving in the direction we had hoped for. But a scrum table like that is a different matter. The format, the open space, is the same. However, the basic attitude of the participants is different. The participants take part much more, are more active. The questioners are more open. The consultants try much harder to get to the heart of the problem.

ScrumTable

I have already placed extremely provocative theses on Scrum tables that do not fit into the agile world view. The prime example is: "The only difference between agile and waterfall is the size and number of Vs." This thesis was discussed impartially, put into perspective and changed the mindsets of some participants for good. Yesterday, two participants asked me about this session again.

An experienced Scrum Master put this into perspective. It is not just the size and number of Vs. Agile follows the "depth-first" approach, whereas waterfall follows the "breadth-first" approach. In agile, the team realizes one user story after the other. In waterfall, on the other hand, the team implements one architectural layer after the other. In the end, it was a knowledge win-win.

Systems Engineering Community

In the SE community, or more precisely with INCOSE members or SysML committee members, I experience problems discussing the question: "What distinguishes software modeling from systems modeling?" When I ask this question, the standard answer is: "Systems engineering and software engineering are not the same thing." After that, the interlocutor chokes off the discussion. Last week, I had a member of the SysML committee so far that I received the statement: "Because systems engineering is different from software engineering. And in a concrete methodical application of UML or SysML, it's not a problem. When source code is generated from ports in RT-UML and xtUML, they only interpret them as full ports. However, UML also allows the interpretation of proxy ports." When I replied: "RT-UML only calls proxy ports relay ports. But the code generators can handle them. I have already used it myself, it is described in the Papyrus Wiki described", the discussion was over again.

Back to the ScrumTable...

One of my topics yesterday was: "Model-based Scrum waterfall hybrid. An experience report." It was well attended and the discussion was open. I received a lot of good tips. As the giver, I was also the receiver. In the end, another win-win.

... and to the SE community

I have already wanted to discuss ways in the SE community on several occasions, according to the RFLP approach from the system model to the domain-specific models. Has always met with rejection.

My wish: I would like to see the spirit of the agile community in the SE community.

Carsten Pitz

Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash