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 Running an Agile Software Development Project is an interesting book. On the surface it looks like it would be very academic, because the author, Mike Holcombe, was a University Professor at the time, and running an “agile software development factory” of students (albeit for a real commercial development shop). And yet what is described in the contents is very much the practical, real-world results of running agile projects with those same people for real IT software development work. The first chapter of the book is a nice (albeit somewhat dated) overview of what it means for a methodology to be “agile.” It includes brief introductions of FDD, Crystal, DSDM, Agile Modeling and Scrum. Most of the rest of the book talks about Extreme Programming (XP) and how the author used and adapted it for epiGenesys Ltd (run by himself and the students). Chapter 2 basically describes XP, while Chapter 3 includes some discussion of planning, PERT & Gaant charts, and risk analysis and dealing with some of the basic governance issues any project first starting agile development must deal with in a real-world project environment with all the governance and cost-accounting and project oversight that goes along with it. In Chapters 4-5, I was particularly interested to see how they solved the requirements documentation problem in an environment that requires formal specifications. Others who have had to deal with this same problem will be interested in how epiGenesys chose to do a mix of formal-specification at the high-level with user-stories at the lower-level of requirements detail. There is also some discussion of the mandatory level of contract negotiation that was required for their type of work. At first, the book seemed to be using the earlier, first edition of XP because it talks quite a bit about System Metaphor (or Metaphor), particularly in chapter 6. But it also includes aspects of the second edition (such as expanding the four values of XP to include the fifth value, Respect). There is a very good discussion of their experiences with unit and system testing in chapters 7-8 and of evolving and delivering the system and its documentation in chapters 9-10. The last two chapters are perhaps the most interesting/novel because they reflect on the experience of those involved, including lessons learned and open discussions. And the last chapter discusses the importance of lifestyle and maintaining good health (something often lacking in most books on the subject, to say nothing of devoting an entire chapter to it, complete with research and references). Overall, I found Running an Agile Software Development Project to be interesting and enjoyable. It still seems just a bit academic for my taste, and probably wouldn’t be the first book I would recommend on the subject unless it was for a classroom audience (in which case this book would be an excellent one to use). About the Reviewer Brad Appleton is an enterprise SCM/ALM solution architect for a Fortune 500 technology company. Currently he helps projects and teams adopt and apply agile development & SCM practices. Brad also author’s the Agile CM Environments blog, and is co-author of Software Configuration Management Patterns: Effective Teamwork, Practical Integration, the "Agile SCM" column in CMCrossroads.com's CM Journal, and is a former section editor for The C++ Report. Since 1987, Brad has extensive experience using, developing, and supporting SCM environments for teams of all shapes and sizes. He holds an M.S. in Software Engineering and a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics.
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| Last Updated on Friday, 14 August 2009 12:23 |
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