Terry Sarten: Corporate slavery ... when blue sky thinking meets a paradigm shift

The galley ship rowed by slaves - new technology in olden times and maybe a blueprint for modern corporations.

Get your fill of Jargon – the old, but new way of confusing communication with saying something.

Used by politicians, business people, charlatans and con artists all over the world, it is spoken in many languages, defies ready translation and can discombobulate even the most discerning minds.

This article elucidates a paradigm shift away from paradoxical nullity towards a frictionless redeployment of agile resources that can be accessed via a pre-pre-programmed boondoggle.

So, let's jump into a room and throw some ideas at this thing. Mind you, at the end of the day going forward, the retro generation of previously retrenched unused asset units may require more than blue sky thinking to disrupt the emerging cycle of greenwashing.

Reforming a white elephant that has become a lame duck may be the equivalent of belling the cat after the horse as bolted.

The kickback that follows a failed diversion tactic can be immersed in sub-optimal facts for a time.

It may seem darkest just before the dawn if we close out eyes to the ongoing outgoings rather than concentrating on the incoming legal leverage trending against our signal position.

If you understood any of that, then maybe you will understand this:

"A sprint is a period of time allocated for a particular phase of a project. Sprints are considered to be complete when the time period expires.

"There may be disagreements among the members of the team as to whether or not the development is satisfactory; however, there will be no more work on that particular phase of the project.

"The remaining phases of the project will continue to develop within their respective time frames."

This quote is lifted directly from a website that promotes a business model called Agile.

This is a trending thing in the corporate world — it sounds new and shiny but look closely and it becomes apparent that it shimmers with the glitter of trash under expensive lighting.

The concept is all the rage in the world of information technology and attempts to embody the "move fast and break things" culture of the technology start-up.

There are teams and clusters. There are stand-up meetings. There are white boards covered with Post-it notes to track progress. It bristles with deadlines and consequences.
Hack away the jargon and the hype and what remains is a galley ship.

These were high tech in the days of the ancient Romans, Phoenicians and Greeks, and were powered by ranks of rowers down each side.

Often these were slaves working under the control of a drummer who keep the rowing rhythm by beating out time — the faster the drum beats the faster the rowing. If you couldn't keep up and collapsed then that was tough; if you died chained to your oar then they tipped you overboard.

This ancient technology utilising slave power is remarkably similar to some modern corporates.

If a team member fails to keep up, then everyone will see that. This looks like corporate bullying, it sounds like corporate bullying and the first court case that follows an employee suing the company for bullying behaviour will clarify that it is, indeed, corporate bullying.

Prior to that occurring, a company might initiate what is termed a "spike": "A story that cannot be estimated until a development team runs a time-boxed investigation."

This might include words like "velocity": "The budget of story units available for planning the next iteration of a development project. Velocity is based on measurements taken during previous iteration cycles."

Of course it is ... everyone knows that.

Terry Sarten (aka Tel) is a writer, satirista (satirist who likes good coffee) a musician and social worker — feedback: terry.sarten@inspire.net.nz