Agile Software Development - Comments

I don t think so. Our is

masini — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:58:42 -0800

I don t think so. Our is better.dezmembrari masini That is my opinion.

no

masini — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:57:11 -0800

No way, isnt so.

ok

masini — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:55:24 -0800

Yes it is dirty but are very good. That is my opinion

Scrum can work, but it HAS to be Scrum!

Broken Spirit — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:33:33 -0800

My company brought in Scrum and I was actually excited about it. But after a year and a half of it I've grown a bit jadded. Management promised us scrum, they demanded scrum, but they were unwilling to give us scrum.
We provided:
-backlogs
-tasks
-stand up meetings
-planning poker
-etc..

But when it came to management holding up their end of the bargin, they didn't.
-No co-located team, we still had to work with the same weak offshore teams members. That no matter how many times were asked would never grab a 'task', raise a 'impediment', etc..
-Estimates provided by the team were second guessed and rounded down
-Stand up meetings still digressed into 30-45 minute conversations, sometimes with the added bonus of finger pointing and blame laying
-When the velocity of the team became established we were given a finish date that was MONTHS earlier than would be possible given the established velocity. Told 'we can figure out a way'.

Do I still believe in Scrum? Yes!
Do I believe a company who thinks they can demand Scrum, but not support it are kidding themselves? Absolutely.

Previous two posts broken?

Keilaron — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:03:58 -0800

For some reason, I can't read parts 1 and 2 ... even though my co-worker had part 1 open just a few minutes ago! We're getting 404 errors now.
Did your cool URLs break?

Painfully true.

James Peckham — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:45:30 -0800

usually the biggest complaint against pairing isn't the productivity drain though. it's 'different priorities' for different people. Uniting people on a common priority will probably get people to pair up more often.

Where i work right now every single developer has their own priority. so why would they want to go pair with someone else why their work slips a date?

You're close, but...

Donald Patti — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 08:03:41 -0800

...in my opinion, you're only capturing part of the reason why Agile has such a challenge with project managers (PMs). I like that you've noted most project managers don't truly "control" their projects - people above them do. So, PMs largely serve as a mediator between the end-users, the sponsors (senior management) and the project team. They have to negotiate agreements that make all parties happy, which is not easy, considering they rarely have true decision-making authority.

You have also mentioned the triple constraints, and this is where I've seen the biggest challenge with Agile. Senior executives, who are paid to meet quarterly profit targets and predict future results or be punished by Wall Street, want to know that the goal of any significant project is successfully being met, they want to know when the work will be delivered and they want to know how much it will cost them. Planning and forecasting is key for them, because they're booking the revenue (or the cost savings) from the software development project in an upcoming quarter, and if it doesn't happen, they need to either find another way to make up the shortfall or prepare the stockholders/owners for a disappointing quarter.

Now, talk with a typical Agile advocate about the triple constraints you mention - what is being delivered, when will it be delivered and how much will it cost me - and most will tell you they can't answer those questions because of the iterative nature of the work. Outside of a given sprint, many, in fact, will say, "it's done when it's done" and tell you to not worry about the rest.

And there's the crux of a problem -- try telling a senior exec "it's done when it's done" and "it will cost what it costs" and the project manager will be out of a job in no time. In their place will come a new PM who answers three questions and then delivers on that answer effectively.

I saw this play out once in a large software development company. The development team used Agile, and senior leadership wanted a release date. One was promised nine months out, and the budget was set based on staffing levels at that time. Many significant technical problems were encountered during that nine month period, and when nine months arrived the software wasn't even close to a state of readiness for delivery. It didn't include enough working functionality for customers to be interested in purchasing it, so it couldn't be shipped. Even worse, the message that the project would be delayed by months was delivered at the last minute. Out went the senior executive, out went the project manager, and in came people "...who could deliver on time."

Given that the Agile project operates in the business world and not in a vacuum, the best way for an Agile advocate to win the support of project managers is to help them answer these three questions (time, scope and cost) efficiently and effectively so they can estimate, track and report progress as the project progresses.

There are ways to do this in Agile, though I'm not an Agile expert. A release plan that identifies which items in the product backlog will be completed in the release and how much time each will take for each is a start. Another alternative is to identify which user stories will be included in a release, estimate resource hours needed to complete each, and tentatively place them in to sprints based on current priorities. You can still change or update the backlog at the beginning of each sprint, but at least you have a semblance of a plan that includes time, scope and cost -- the components that PM's, and ultimately senior executives need.

In closing, I'll play devil's advocate here and assume that there are few folks saying, "who needs the project manager, anyway?" Well, if senior management is willing to buy in to the idea of not knowing the triple constraints, then a good PM could just as well be replaced by a good Scrum Master, and PM's could transition in to that role. On small projects, the need for accountability is comparatively low, which is one reason why Agile does so well with smaller projects.

But, if senior management demands to know the triple constraints, in the absence of a PM to ask, they'll go after whoever is heading the Agile team until they get the answers they need. If the Scrum Master refuses to answer, fudges the numbers and then doesn't deliver on promised dates, their time with the company will be short. So, PM's need Scrum Masters and Scrum Masters need PM's -- it's rarely an either-or scenario.

Donald Patti is a Principal Consultant with Cedar Point Consulting, a management consulting practice based in the Washington, DC area, where he advises businesses in project management, process improvement, and small business strategy. Cedar Point Consulting can be found at http://www.cedarpointconsulting.com.

In general, ScrumWorks is for

e okul — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 04:55:43 -0800

In general, ScrumWorks is for doing Scrum, in particular at large organizations. Our support for directory authentication, web reports, business value metrics, and complex backlogs shows our dedication to the enterprise. We're not trying to build a generalized framework tool for "agile-ish" processes. We're building features and leaving others out very deliberately as our trainers and consultants report field successes and failures.

Education vs. Experience

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:09:39 -0800

Education helps. In some areas it’s a must have.

Most education will not give you ambition, nerves or moral, it will not make you a fighter. However it gives you knowledge, and sometimes knowledge is key.

So just walking about with a lot of knowledge won’t make you a success. You have to throw yourself into action, the right action, and make things happen, even if you’re stomach screams no. Forward is the way to go. That will give you ambition, nerves and moral. You have to build yourself in a way.

I do what I have to do in order to achieve my objectives, with common sence ofcourse. And if that includes having to get an education, so be it.

However, as a not-so-master

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:13:29 -0800

However, as a not-so-master programmer I can only advise you to test for method/class/unit contract.
Write a few tests for expected ('normal') inputs, then identify and test corner cases (that you know of), add some clearlyinvalid inputs to see if the code fails gracefully.In 2000, the show starts at school e okul applications have turkey and newly started to eokul be used widely. how our people e mezun can benefit from this e-okul practice very well of course it 's also e mezun are discussed. Google, please love me anymore aq
You will add new test cases when you start fixing bugs later - you will know what to test for.

The article describes Kanban

e okul — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 02:12:16 -0800

The article describes Kanban as
" 1. Physical: It is a physical card. It can be held in the hand, moved, and put into or onto something.
2. Limits WIP: It limits WIP (Work-In-Process), i.e. prevents overproduction.
3. Continuous Flow: It notifies needs of production before the store runs out of stock.
4. Pull: The downstream process pulls items from the upstream process.

BTW. "Deferring decisions" in

e okul — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 02:20:26 -0800

BTW. "Deferring decisions" in my opinion clearly derives from XP "simplicity" value i.e. implement what you need today and nothing more. If you need something else tomorrow you will re-factor what you implemented today (or implement it from scratch).

A developer has a major role

george — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:01:43 -0800

A developer has a major role for any company's welfare, without him a business won't have a healthy growth. Although it should be obviously for a developer to have his own quiet office, this rarely occurs in real life. It seems that employers think this is a pretty high effort since they will have to rent a bigger space for their developers too. They are wrong though, i know this because i work in some Chicago office space , our developers have their own office now and our company seems to take better decisions comparing the time when we were all working in an open-office.

effective is

Kompetisi website kompas — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:25:22 -0800

In order to be more effective we need to be flexible. When requirements change we need to be able to change direction too. This can be done by minimizing work in progress. By working in small increments and finishing all work after each increment we're able to re-evaluate goals during the project.
yah flexible is the esential

architecture and infrastructure.

Kieryn Phipps — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:01:27 -0800

I think this post actually touches on one of the (if not the) biggest weaknesses of the agile process. It frequently allows you to miss those critical tasks and design steps that might increase development efficiency or allow better scalability simply because they do not translate into comprehensible end-user stories.

Recently at an agile conference, I heard the metaphor of the development of a house described in an agile way to illustrate the point of making sure that a product was thought of as a whole to ensure earlier functionality. It goes like this: Avoid building each component separately in sequence (eg. build the foundation, then the walls then the roof) because that way the product is not usable until entirely completed. Instead, start with basic usability and improve - so you would build a simple shack, add an extension, improve the walls and add an extra floor, install furniture etc, so the product is usable after each small step.

Expanding the metaphor, the problem with this method is, that you are never ever going to build a skyscraper that way, and sometimes a skyscraper will be needed. The other problem is that as a technologist or developer you may clearly see the need for a skyscraper, but conveying this need to someone that doesn't understand technology is extremely difficult. Also, trying to convert it into end-user stories is going to leave out all the critical details.

I think the solution in cases like this might be some kind of hybrid method where the architecture required is identified and developed in separate projects (possibly managed in a none-agile way) with the usable features being prioritized and built on top using agile.

I haven't figured out exactly how this might work yet though.