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Tool Integration Challenges - August 2006
The Agile Manifesto begins by stressing the value of "individuals and interactions over processes and tools." While it's true that the emphasis on people and collaboration makes all the difference on an Agile project, there is no question that tools are a necessary component of success. I've noted many times over the past six years that I have never seen a successful Agile project that did not, at the very least, have a strong software configuration management and build environment in place. This is particularly true for those organizations looking to scale their Agile efforts to enterprise-wide initiatives and distributed Agile projects.
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Agile 2006: Mainstream, Sort Of
The Agile 2006 Conference in Minneapolis this month was a success any way you slice it. Over 1100 people attended over 150 sessions that ranged from management to technical to user-oriented topics. Industry thought leaders presented papers and positions on both current day and future issues and really seemed to cover the gamut of issues relating to Agile development. The exhibitors provided pragmatic solutions for today's challenges and also got you excited about future developments. So are we there yet? Yes, Agile processes are being used in almost every industry and in many countries. But no, we have not yet reached a critical mass in terms of large organizations demonstrating quantifiable results.
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Activating The Lifecycle
Agile development practices such as test driven development, refactoring and continuous integration are proven techniques contributing to more robust software, and tools and utilities are available to facilitate each technique. When faced with the deadline pressures and scope changes that run rampant on real world projects, great discipline is required by the agile developer to continue practicing these important techniques. Teams that cave to project pressures and neglect the practices favor seemingly short-term gain, while compromising the future growth and integrity of the software system. Integrating the tools that support the agile practices into a robust build process is the cornerstone of an effective continuous integration strategy, enabling refactoring and test driven development. An automated and repeatable process ensures development teams never stray far from practicing important agile practices, allowing them to take the next step toward becoming a team that can consistently deliver reliable, high quality software.
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The Limited Business Benefits Of Tools
The responsiveness of Agile teams results from disciplined execution of best practices. When executed consistently, these practices - particularly automated testing, continuous integration and iterative delivery - create integrity of completion for every unit of work delivered. There are specific tools that reduce onboarding time and automate these practices, making them becoming part of every day activity. However, the tools offer no shortcut to Agile adaptation: while the tools make the practices more efficient, they do not themselves provide value without fundamental practices in place.
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 | Putting Humpty Back Together Again: The True Cost Of Integration
Every tool we use has its own built in micro-process. Every development methodology we implement has its own macro-process. Our best practices for development are enshrined in the tools we use, the processes we follow and the ways we integrate all these together. When we get this right we can optimize the development effectiveness of our teams; when we get this wrong we risk quality, content and timescales. We all know we could do a better job at integrating but we are prepared to accept the lim...
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 | Benefits Of Tool Integration In Distributed Agile Development
The first agile principle in the Agile Manifesto is "individuals and interactions over processes and tools." In this competitive world, the customer expectation is high in terms of quality, productivity and cost. "Individuals" alone cannot meet customers' expectations and this is where the tools complement individuals' efforts. There are numerous open source and commercial tools available to help developers achieve success. The second part of above-mentioned agile principle says "interac...
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 | FEATURED BOOK: Software Engineering with MS Visual Studio Team System
by Sam Guckenheimer with Juan Perez
I found this book to be surprisingly good (outstanding even), and not at all what I was expecting given the apparent tool/vendor-specific nature suggested by the title. The value-up paradigm and most of the other concepts and values in the book are very well aligned with agility while still meeting the needs of those in enterprise-scale companies and projects who may require more CMMI-based ceremony in their software and systems engineering efforts....
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 | CASE STUDY: Shopzilla Scales Software Agility With Agile Tools
The Agile Manifesto places value on "individuals and interactions" over "processes and tools." However, an entirely new breed of tools has emerged that requires us to take another look at the role tooling plays in Agile organizations. These tools are lightweight, fully integrated and aim to both support and scale Agile by increasing collaboration at all team levels. These integrated Agile Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools are completely unlike the heavyweight, costly and disconnected tools of the...
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Latest Issues of Agile Journal
Coming Up - Editorial Calendar
- August 13 - Quality Agile Development
- September 10 - Agile News
- October 08 - Valuable Agile Practices
- November 12 - Introducing Agile to the Organization
- December 10 - The State of the Agile Community
See the full 2008 Editorial Calendar >
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