Monday, January 05, 2009

The Agile Rules in HP's Original Garage

According to a recent HP poster, these were the rules in Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard's famous garage:

  • Believe you can change the world.
  • Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.
  • Know when to work alone and when to work together.
  • Share tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.
  • No Politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in a garage).
  • The customer defines a job well done.
  • Radical ideas are not bad ideas.
  • Invent different ways of working.
  • Make a contribution every day. If it doesn’t contribute, it doesn’t leave the garage.
  • Believe that together we can do anything.
  • Invent.

    • Curiously, it sounds like something the agile guys might have written (had they not written the manifesto). I prefer this wording because of its greater applicability and more dynamic presentation.

    5 comments:

    1. Anonymous11:52 AM

      Shouldn't that be "Hewlett"?

      ReplyDelete
    2. Andrew Binstock1:12 PM

      Fixed. Thanks!

      ReplyDelete
    3. Jeff Langr11:46 AM

      Hi Andrew--

      Thanks for posting this, I'd not seen it elsewhere. Do you have a source? I'm working on an "agile reference index card" project (see http://agileinaflash.com), and this might make a good candidate for inclusion.

      Thanks,
      Jeff L.

      ReplyDelete
    4. Andrew Binstock12:16 PM

      @Jeff L. You're welcome. Here is a link to a PDF of HP's ad listing the rules.

      ReplyDelete
    5. Anonymous10:19 PM

      I love the HP Garage poster. the last one there 'Invent' has been their brand tagline for a long time. The story by itself is inspiring!

      ReplyDelete