The Path Less Traveled

by Robert Frost – another part time NHerite, just like me!

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

In Tom DeMarco’s book “Deadline” he tells the tale of a kidnapped Program Manager, and interesting tale, but a tale none the less. In it, the protagonist is given the opportunity to run a project multiple times simultaneously. Nowhere but in a novel do you get to travel both paths. Indeed, it is hard except in a poem to take the path less traveled because of the nuances and the mores of the establishment.

Agile used to be the path less traveled. Many individuals and groups can attest to the difficulties in breaking from established patterns sufficiently to try a new methodology and others can tell you how easy it is/was to ground a transformation in mid-flight. Never the less, ultimately it will be the agile path that makes all the difference.