Cloud Foundry: Design and Architecture
Derek Collison discusses the goals, the design premises and patterns employed in creating the architecture of Cloud Foundry, VMware’s open source PaaS, unveiling internal architectural details.
News
The content has been bookmarked!
There was an error bookmarking this content! Please retry.
Bloggers Attack Dr. Jeff Sutherland's Interest & Support of Frequency Foundation
Posted by Christopher Goldsbury on Jan 01, 2012
Several blogs criticized Dr. Jeff Sutherland's interest in electronic medicine yesterday and his support for the Frequency Foundation. The blogs' owners contend that he is investing in and potentially profiting from what is considered a derided arm of medical science. Not stopping there, the blog owners' attempted to contrast Dr. Sutherland's interest in this questionable science with his success introducing scrum software development to the world.
From Jordan Bortz:
Well, here is what I see the similarities being:
1) Scrum is just the idea of Sutherland and to some degree Schwaber. Similar to the Rife Frequencies just being an idea — there is no proof that either works, yet Sutherland sells both
2) Most of the “evidence” — such as there is — that scrum works at all is due to Sutherlands work at a number of companies and it’s widely quoted. But we can see from his “work” at Frequency Foundation that his claims must be taken with a very large dose of skepticism
3) The Rife folks appear to be preying on desperate people hoping for a silver bullet to cure their ills. And Scrum (IMHO) is preying on desperate managers hoping for a silver bullet
4) The Rife stuff -is pseudomedicine and the Scrum stuff is simplistic pseudomanagement.
I used to think there was a certain tin foil hat element to the Scrumentology business but we can see that at least one high level Scrum lord is way beyond tin foil hats and e-meters.
From Agile Forest:
Personally I am confused as to why Jeff Sutherland has actually gone to some lengths to separate the two of these organisations ( Scrum.org & Frequency Foundation ). Even his linkedin profile has no mention of Frequency Foundation. Is it a concern to him that his relationship with radionics and Royal Rife would impact on his reputation within the Agile community?
But commentors on those sites weren't in complete agreement about the attempted connection:
Software development is not science. And it is not medicine. It is a craft, a trade if you like. You may as well compare llamas to lampshades, after all they both start with L. ~Tobias Mayer
So , Renee, what you are saying, without saying it, is that if Jeff Sutherland is a quack in this ELF thing – which as you describe, is clearly quack-like. And if he goes to great lengths to isolate it from his Scrum work , then clearly he has something to hide. Perhaps you are contending that if this stuff is quackery then perhaps Scrum (or at least his participation in it) is also questionable or improbable and perhaps software process quackery.
If that is what you are saying – then be brave, show real courage and say it.
Otherwise, butt out of the dude’s private life......~Mike
According to Dr. Jeff Sutherland's LinkedIn profile he regards this as a hobby. Not his profession:
My hobby is a passionate interest in electronic medicine, using electromagnetic devices to eliminate pathogens, affect cellular function, DNA, and protein creation. I am a well known, international leader in this emerging technology area with a worldwide client base. One of my future startups will be in this area as the technology matures.
Further, Jeff does have a medical degree from the University of Colorado, School of Medicine.
While the bloggers may have found an eccentric hobby and interest maintained by one of the most famous agile manifesto signatories, it's not at all clear how,or if , this has any connection to scrum as a software development process. Plenty of historical figures have had equally strange, sometimes even scandalous, interests or habits. For example, Albert Einstein wouldn't wear socks and after divorcing his first wife married his cousin. This doesn't seem to have diminished his contribution to the world of physics.
Turning it back to our readers....what are your thoughts? Do the bloggers have a point?
- This article is part of a featured topic series on Agile
- See more Agile content at: http://www.infoq.com/agile
- Other recent content items in this topic
RelatedVendorContent
Agile Development: A Manager's Roadmap for Success
Visual Studio vNext: ALM features for Agile Planning, Team Collaboration
Branching & Merging Efficiently: A Guide to Using Process-Based Promotional Patterns
Related Sponsor
In today’s hyper-competitive world, later may be too late to adopt Agile development and this Roadmap for Success will help you get started. Download "Agile Development: A Manager's Roadmap for Success" now!
I'm not sure "Attack" is the right word to use
by
Jordan Bortz
Posted
I see no relation
by
Michael Kramer
Posted
Re: I see no relation
by
Jordan Bortz
Posted
Re: I see no relation
by
Diego Fernandez
Posted
Re: I see no relation
by
Jordan Bortz
Posted
Re: I see no relation
by
Cameron Purdy
Posted
Re: I see no relation
by
Diego Fernandez
Posted
Re: I see no relation
by
Jordan Bortz
Posted
AgileForest and some background
by
Renee Troughton
Posted
-
I think what is going on is letting the community know what one of the leaders is up to, and has been up to for over a decade.
What troubles me here, is taking unproven concepts, and certainly it was unproven, and this rife stuff is unproven, and selling it into the markeplace, while using much hyperbole to extol it's virtues.
Also, I think trust is a large part of agile, and how does this affect the coefficient of trust?
Further, you quote Tobias, who has many "unusual" opinions -- such that Project Management is a "disease" that "needs to be cured" -- not surprising there would be some agreement between what he thinks and what Jeff thinks.
And that to me is the most dangerous aspect of all this agile stuff starting with XP -- the nullification of critical thinking, and a herd of group followers who unquestioningly follow the party line.
Although Renee broke the story, I drew many parallels to pseudoscience, mostly related to Scrum itself.
I invite bloggers to read my posting in it's entirety, read Renees posting, and especially read the source documents and form their own opinions.
Once again this was not an attack, it was a wakeup call, and a time to introspect. At least that was my purpose writing my posting;
Regards,
Jordan -
I may be too simpleminded but I see no relation between organizing creative teams in a certain way and a debateable medical practice.
I just can't see that the suiteability of Scrum in a specific team environment has anything to do with Jeff's personal beliefs.
Jeff may invest his personal money in whatever areas he sees fit - I'm not to judge.
I'm very conservative regarding medical practices so I'm not going to follow Jeff down the FF road.
But I'm still happy that he and Ken created the initial Scrum process.
Please don't clutter the story of Scrum with a discussion of which medical practices are questionable or not. -
I would like to have the opportunity to make a few things clear please:
* If this was a simple matter of just a new age blog without anything being sold I would never have published anything. But Frequency Foundation isn't an interest, it is a business that he receives profit from. It was because of this source of revenue that I investigated it further.
* I have stated this before and will restate it again - I do not have a problem with alternative forms of science. A good portion of modern day science grew from backgrounds of non belief.
* But this isn't a science that hasn't been tested. It has been tested by respected scientists and disproven - not once, but several times. If Frequency Foundation wasn't trying to make a profit off disproven science then I would not have posted anything.
* It is because it has been disproven that I have brought the Scrum component into the equation and asked the reader to introspect on a few things.
* Regarding Jeff's medical degree he is not a licensed physician. It states so clearly in frequencyfoundation.com/forms/ConsentForm.pdf
* I attempted to keep to the facts in the blog and let the reader make their own judgement. I asked some questions but never "attacked". I think you are stretching this Christopher and are in fact making the same mistake yourself by attacking me.
* Blogs are always personal opinions, many are filled with these viewpoints, taking this stance from an InfoQ perspective is an interesting position. Are you saying that all blogists shouldn't feel like they can express their opinion? -
The relation is there is no credible, peer reviewed research that either works. If you know of any credible, peer reviewed research, that isn't affiliated with a company that has skin the game (Xebian, GE Healthcare etc) please post it. The only one I know of Salesforce and the rest have all been failures (Yahoo, Myspace, Nokia, etc)
Jordan -
I still don't see any relation. Using Dr. Sutherland personal interests to criticize SCRUM is silly and dangerous. To do an extreme analogy is like questioning Newton's science and mathematical work because of his religious views.
Going back to the topic of this site -which is software engineering, and not people defamation-: In the matter of software methodologies the statement that there "is no credible, peer reviewed research" to show "that (they) works" could be applied to any methodology, just name it: UP, AUP or XP.
I don't know why this article got published on InfoQ, if the intention was to generate a debate about SCRUM there is no point to criticize other personal interests of his creators. I guess that the next article will be a debate about if Computer Science is a failure because Alan Turing was gay. -
I really respect Alan Turing, and I think it is a tragedy what occurred with him as well as Oscar Wilde etc. But this isn't about their sex life or religion, this is about their supposedly scientific views.
You're right -- the lack of credibility should be applied to all the unprovent fad methodologies, including and especially XP. After all, XP was borne out of the failed C3 project at Chrysler.
What I'm saying is that this community has for too long bought into unproven methodologies with no evidence of efficacy, and what's worse, sold certifications in them as well as denigrated those that don't believe in them.
If you want to say XP and Rife and Scrum are all faith based methodologies -- fine. That isn't a science, it isn't proven and it isn't repeatable.
I'm demonstrating that many of the methodologies that you mention have no basis in fact any more than this Rife stuff.
Newton's math is repeatable and provable; Scrum is not. Ditto with Turing.
Since there is no proof, it's a faith-based personality cult, and it's long past time we moved past the pseudoscience and personality cults in this industry.
Jordan -
Since there is no proof, it's a faith-based personality cult, and it's long past time we moved past the pseudoscience and personality cults in this industry.
Heresy! -
I agree with you that software methodologies doesn't have good research to prove it's effectiveness.
But the point to discuss is just that: the lack of research on how software development methodologies works in real world examples; not Sutherland's interests. Because taking that path in the discussion does the same that you critic: the critic is based in one of the authors personality and not in the scrum method itself.
On InfoQ, I'll like to see an article about what's wrong with scrum or why those scrum projects failed, or maybe what is the problem with software certifications or the tendency in our immature field to buy the "next silver bullet". But I don't care about other interests of Dr. Sutherland.
Back in the discussion of software development methodologies.
I think that there is a problem when it comes to evaluate them. Since they are management techniques, that deal with people and a lot of external factors; is very difficult to apply statements like "demonstration". Maybe we spend too much time with computers :) A sociologist is going to have more tools to analyze what worked better depending on the environment.
About the use of the word science in our field I'll recommend you an article of Frederick Brooks called "The Computer Scientist as Toolsmith", which is interesting and in some point related with this discussion. -
Diego I agree with you in almost everything you say.
I personally, don't care what Jeff's hobbies are, unless, they are
1) Selling false hopes to people
2) Brainwashing corporations that there is 1 true way to do software development
Jeff recently made a video wherein he again talks about his "Hyperproductive" scrum type thing. And there is zero evidence it works, let alone provides a 400% improvement.
This isn't about Jeff, this is about the community deifying the agile manifesto, deifying the signatories...and you know what?
They put their pants on one leg at a time, just like we all do, and their opinion is no more important than your own.
I want people to think for themselves and do what makes sense. Not follow some leader based on some manifesto, when it's clear that they have no particular monopoly on the truth.
Jordan
9 comments
Watch Thread Reply