Can the film production process teach the agile world how to make software?

I've written articles and presentations around leveraging ideas and techniques from moviemaking in the software development process, and my honest reaction to this question is… No.

Moviemaking is definitely a collaborative process, but it is also one that is driven by the vision of a screenwriter and/or a director… You start with a story, and the director extends it and revises it to suit and match his or her vision of how to tell it. The collaboration comes around aspects of the film, because obviously the director can't do it all… But the vision is still driving the film.

I would dare say that a large reason that many films fail is when they are TOO collaborative… When the movie is, affectively, "designed by committee." And the same traps can befall Agile development if the team does not have a shared agreement to the vision of what the team is supposed to deliver/produce. When everyone's opinion is equal, then what you end up producing is often… Well, average.

So the best agile projects, like the best films, are benevolent dictatorships. Everyone buying into what the vision is allows everyone to collaborate affectively. And it takes a leader to define and set that vision.

I think the best and most practical way that we can leverage aspects of moviemaking in an agile process is to look at the aspects of the design process (UX) and apply lessons from screenwriting into tactics in that process. Which is something I have looked at and focused on in my work.

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