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Agile in 2007: Whats Coming, Whats Needed
As we
close out this year, it is exciting to see the progress that so many
organizations have made using Agile processes. This month's Agile Journal looks
at what is coming and what is needed for Agile success in 2007. With both
breadth and depth, our contributors address technology, process, and
organizational challenges.
Given the broad scope of Agile
practices, organizations may struggle with transition plans, particularly when
legacy processes are deeply embedded. Amr Elssamadisy outlines a pragmatic
approach to determining which Agile practices to adopt and how. Have we "crossed
the chasm" yet? Per Kroll gives you his perspective on what it will take to
truly make Agile processes mainstream. Kirk Knoernschild's resolutions for 2007
include tackling the technical challenges of Agile code, Agile infrastructure,
and Agile tools and frameworks. From a management perspective, Ross Pettit
discusses how governance in an Agile (or any) engagement, a necessity in today's
business environment, must be results-oriented, inclusive of all IT activities,
and non-burdensome to execute.
Specific
projects examples are always useful. This month, Mike Burba shares how teams building
the State of Ohio Automated Child
Welfare Information System used Agile processes to deliver
a large-scale complex application with significantly better results than
previous projects had achieved. Simon Townsend describes vielife's success in building a Web-based health and well-bring
service and management information tool. And Jeff Sutherland, Anton Vicktorov,
and Peter Vaihansky demonstrate the success they've had with SirsiDynix, using
distributed Scrum to develop a large integrated library system. (This project
was one of the stories discussed at the Agile 2006 conference this summer and received
great interest from the conference participants.)
In 2007, the Agile Journal will address these wide-ranging
issues about Agile technology, processes, management, and organization. We
invite you to share your experiences and comments. If you would like to
contribute an article on these or any other Agile-related topic, go to the
"Letters to the Editor"
in the forum at AgileJournal.com.
Best wishes for a happy and healthy new year,
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Editor in Chief
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Being Agile in 2007
By all accounts, 2006 was an important year in the world of Agile development. Agile processes have hit the mainstream, with even very traditional IT shops showing interest (if not yet investment) in changing the way they develop software. The numbers are growing: over 1100 people attended the Agile 2006 conference in Minneapolis; over 15,000 people participate in Yahoo groups on topics including general Agile development, XP, Scrum, and Agile management (although many belong to more than one group); 700 Agile developers responded to the VersionOne study with their perspectives; and so on. But there's still more ground to cover. There are too many variants of Agile processes, confusing potential adopters. There is little to no experience using Agile processes for commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) applications and related integration projects. Management is focused on business value, governance, and software delivery while Agile advocates still focus on the developer community. Hopefully, 2007 will be a year to address these issues so that Agile processes can become the norm rather than the exception for software developers.
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Getting Beyond "It Depends!" Being Specific But Not Prescriptive About Agile Practice Adoption
As more and more people move towards adoption of Agile practices, they are looking to the Agile community for guidance and advice on how to adopt Agile successfully. Unfortunately many of the questions they have such as "Where do I start?" "What specific practices should I adopt?" "How can I adopt incrementally?" and "Where can I expect pitfalls?" are not adequately answered despite the fact that many of us know the answers to these questions. There are currently three types of answers to these questions: 1) read so-and-so's methodology book that refers to an entire process (usually a cohesive set of practices); 2) read articles A, B, and C which are ‘war stories' of companies who have successfully adopted; or 3) a very honest "Well it really depends on your team's specific circumstances, you might want to hire some consultants to help you out (usually this is said by a consultant)." We can do better than that as a community! In this article I present one way to share our knowledge that is more specific than full methodologies and processes, more general than war stories, and will help new Agile adopters get beyond "It Depends!"
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An Agile Approach To IT Governance
The demand for IT governance is increasing at a rate faster than the capability to govern IT is maturing. While greater scrutiny on spending and increased business regulation ratchets up pressure, IT management struggles even to come to consensus on a definition of what governance is and is not. Governance initiatives are typically little more than bureaucratic "bolt-ons" to monitor employee activity. The results speak for themselves: although it consistently appears as a top-10 priority for CIOs, only about 10 percent of CIOs report "very effective" governance, and nearly 60 percent report neutral or outright ineffective governance practices.[1] To make governance effective, there must be a simple yet complete definition of governance that is results-oriented, inclusive of all IT activities, and non-burdensome to execute.
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 | Making Agile Mainstream - Crossing the Chasm
Agile development has been used effectively for a number of years, but its adoption has primarily been limited to pockets within organizations. Lately, adoption has begun to grow in industries such as insurance, telecom and financial services; but for agile development to become mainstream, it needs backing by major industry players, a unified rather than scattered agile landscape, and evolutionary rather than revolutionary agile transformations. We need improved support for large-scale agile tr...
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 | An Agile Resolution
Agile development continues to gain momentum, but teams embracing agility typically emphasize process and practices and ignore the technological aspects necessary to increase agility. Are teams agile because they use Scrum? No. Are teams agile because they practice Continuous Integration? No. Are teams agile because they have a project room? No. Agility is not defined by process or practice. Agility is defined by ability. The ability to deliver working software. The ability to respond to change....
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 | Hyperproductivity In Large Projects Though Distributed Scrum
One of the common objections to using Agile approaches is, "What if our project is too big?" Indeed, Agile almost invariably equals small teams. However, our experience of the past 2.5 years shows that Agile methods such as XP and Scrum can be successfully applied to large scale projects. In fact, Scrum is the first process with well-documented linear scalability. When you double team size in a well-implemented Scrum, you can double software output, even when the teams are distributed and outsou...
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 | vielife Embraces New Technology To Enhance Health Assessment Program
Health and well-being (HWB) services provider vielife has taken an agile approach to upgrading its Web-based HWB service and management information tool, with the help of Agile consulting firm Valtech. Due to the nature of the agile process, the team was able to make adjustments to development of the next generation portal along the way, adapting to changing business requirements and ensuring that each phase met expectations. As a result, vielife has been able to increase flexibility of th...
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 | CASE STUDY: Four Myths of Agile Development
State of Ohio Automated Child Welfare Information System (SACWIS)
Agile development continues to gain traction in enterprise IT organizations, but myths and misconceptions slow the pace of acceptance and preclude the use of Agile methods in situations where they could otherwise add significant value. Part of the issue is the simplicity of its philosophy as stated in the Agile Manifesto, which leaves plenty of room for (mis)interpretation and leads to myths such as Agile is anti-documentation....
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 | FEATURED BOOK: Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash by Mary & Tom Poppendiec
by Mary & Tom Poppendieck
Implementing Lean Software Development is a follow-up to the Poppendiecks' award-winning 2003 book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers. It doesn't disappoint. Their first book focused on explaining the principles and concepts of Lean and how those apply to software development. This second book focuses on the history and practice of lean software development and what you can do today to implement lean software dev...
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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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