Forecast
Pantagrueline Prognostications onwards...
The great French prose author, François Rabelais, shares such a comprehensive annual forecast as below:
This year there will be so many eclipses of the Sun and Moon that I fear (and not without reason) that our purses will suffer from emptiness and our senses from confusion.
Saturn will be retrograde, Venus direct, Mercury inconstant.
And a bunch of other planets will not go according to your command.Therefore, for this year, crabs will walk sideways, and rope-makers backward;
stools will climb upon benches, spits upon andirons, and caps upon hats;
cushions will be found at the foot of the bed;
testicles will hang from many for lack of pouches;
fleas will be black for the most part;
bacon will flee the peas during Lent;
the belly will go first, the backside will sit down first;
one will not be able to find the bean in the King’s cake;
one will not find an ace at cards;
the dice will not say what is desired no matter how much they are flattered,
and the chance one asks for will not often come;
beasts will speak in various places.1
I suspect we have all attended such Agile ceremonies, project reviews, or other meetings in which assorted forecasts2 were presented, discussed, or just gazed at, and we asked ourselves, “Haven’t we been through this…already…sometime before…?”
There seems to be some analysis based on some data, some information that is ‘safe’ to be shared, and some consequences are presented, not necessarily based off that data, sometimes—albeit that information—and there’s a thing of forecasting.
You did this before.
Your forecasts had failed.
You did not go back and ask, “Why were our forecasts off?” or “What did we get wrong?”
You just prodded on, building on optimism and unicorns over rainbows…
It seems that next time around—
…I fear (and not without reason) that our … senses [will suffer] from confusion…
And a bunch of other [things] will not go according to your command…
François Rabelais, Pantagrueline Prognostication, Des ecclipses de ceste année, Chapitre ii.
I expressed my doubts and critical views of the arrogant approach the IT industry assumes with predictions, assessments, promises, and responsibility in past posts, sed hanc marginis exiguitas non caperet…