Bob Martin is one of the 17 Agile Manifesto signatories, and the creator of the Clean Code and Clean Agile movements.
“Uncle Bob” as he is affectionately known, is the author of 6 books on agile, and a doyen of the software craftsmanship approach.
I first met Bob at one of the first XP Universe conferences in the early 2000s. My visionary boss at that time, Flavio Diomede, had introduced me to eXtreme Programming (or XP) and agile methods. We were managing software teams using the XP process, and I was seeking ways to evolve my own management approach. Specifically, traditional management did not allow for what was, at that time, the radical concept of delegating autonomy to our teams.
So, I’d developed an agile management approach informed by Complex Adaptive Systems that blended autonomy with alignment, and captured that in a whitepaper that quickly gained a lot of traction online. One thing led to another, and Bob very kindly invited me to write my own book, Managing Agile Projects, in his Prentice Hall book series.
Now, decades later, I want to again draw attention to that singular act of graciousness. Thank you Bob, for having that faith in me as a young manager.
Over the decades since, Bob has remained inspirational in his commitment to strong software development principles and practices. Along with Kent Beck, Martin Fowler, Ron Jeffries and James Grenning, Bob has been among the signatories who have continued to advocate for software development as the core foundation for agile methods.
Today, Bob inspires thousands of agilists around the world to focus on the first principles of agile, and on the ongoing improvement of our discipline.
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