Turns out guacamole is the answer. I’m not entirely sure what the question is (on a side note, I just found out there is a new Douglas Adams book called 42 that comprises a treasure trove of his unreleased personal stash of notebooks, letters and scripts)
Anyhoo, Time is an illusion; lunchtime doubly so, so let’s move on. If guacamole is the answer, the question is, obviously, “why - in Agile - do we only improve only one thing at a time. Take Scrum retrospectives, for instance. They tell us to adopt one, and only one, enhancement per sprint. But why limit ourselves? Are we not grown up enough to juggle more than one improvement at a time.
So what has a delicious creamy avocado dip got to do with it? Well, one of the main challenges with this delectable concoction is its insistence of turning brown right after you make it.
It might seem counterintuitive to focus on just one improvement at a time. Yet, I urge you to spend the afternoon in my house with my sister-in-law and my mum preparing dips and you’ll soon change your mind.
SiL: “The best way to stop the guac turning brown is to drop the stone into the mix before putting it in the fridge, it’s an old Mexican abuela trick, trust me I know these things.” “No”, my mother replies with the authority of a head chef at Wahaca. “The best way to stop it going brown is to spray fresh lemon juice over the top, and then put it in the fridge.”
Now I don’t like to be out-dipped, so I couldn’t resist adding my own option, “Don’t be crazy” I attest (I obviously didn’t say that to my mother) “Don’t be mistaken mother dearest” I attest “the surefire way to stop it going brown is to put clingfilm over the top, press it down and seal the deal, That stops the oxidation process”.
We test all three methods, pit, lemon and cling film. We make the guacamole - not enough garlic for my liking but that’s a separate post - we add the stone; we spray it with lemon juice, and we press cling film over the top. Fast forward to later that evening we open the fridge and remove a nugget of purest green. So, it worked.
But who was right?
