The final season of The Walking Dead is currently airing so I thought I’d use the show’s premise – surviving the zombie apocalypse – to explain how agile teams and agile release trains (ARTs) work, as well as the difference between the two.
The executive summary is that:
- An agile team is like your family unit – your survival is integrally linked to how well you work together as a team and utilise your complementary skills to overcome your daily challenges.
- An ART is like your village – a community of family units who, when working together effectively, can achieve much more (and survive much longer) than individual family units.
- Moving from a family unit to a settlement requires giving up some autonomy but the benefits of being part of a team of teams in a settlement vastly outweighs the loss of absolute autonomy.