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The Agile Journal publishes original content, articles and regular columns
from industry thought leaders, analysts and software providers on a
wide variety of topics related to agile development best practices and business adoption of agile ideas. Below you will find links directly to our columns
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 In a previous article addressing the challenges of Enterprise Requirements Management, it was suggested that the legacy enterprise organization requires restructuring so that productivity gains promised by Agile methods can take root and grow. At the same time, there is a growing chorus of IT skeptics who are singing about the ineffectiveness of the CIO.[1[2] Legacy enterprise organizations struggle to stay coupled with business drivers, with the most collaborative relationship occurring at the CIO-to-peer level. In this article, the structure of the misaligned IT organization is revealed as process-centric silos which have created an ever-widening chasm with business clients that the enterprise organization is supposed to serve. It is suggested that this chasm is best bridged using Lean and Agile methods. Enterprise agility begins with building trust by rapidly creating business value using cross-functional teams that can be scaled upward. Agile barriers and enablers are presented to allow CIOs to assess their organization's potential for restructuring and adapting to Agile.
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Software development is seen as
chronically chaotic and complex to the extent that project management can achieve
little control over projects or outcome [1,
2].
Recently, we have come into a new era of hope; hope of getting people -
real people, users, both naïve and sophisticated - more involved with, more
relevant to, and more visible in software development.
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 The term "Agile" in the
context of software development is no longer an alien word, with many companies
professing to do, think or indeed be
Agile. While on the surface this is great for the software industry, it can
bring problems as there is no single definition of Agile or definitive process
that everyone follows. Carrying out projects and transitioning to Agile can
therefore end in disaster if perceptions and expectations differ. This is where
training, communication and motivation are so important in the successful
adoption of Agile processes.
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 Are we
Agile? If we ask a leader we'll get one
perspective, but if we ask each person on the team we may be surprised by the
variety of answers. Since 2002, IBM has used
agile evaluation frameworks with dozens of teams to help them learn, improve,
and share their experiences with agile practices. The metrics in the Extreme Programming
Evaluation Framework, or (XP:EF) originally focused on XP, and similar
instances covered other methods.[i] But because the framework can be used with a
broader set of practices, it's simpler to say "the Agile Evaluation Framework"
(Agile:EF). This article shares tips on using the framework in a lightweight
manner to leverage "the simplest metrics that could possibly work."
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The Agile Developer
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 Design and
code reviews promise to improve software quality, ensure compliance with
standards, and serve as a valuable teaching tool for developers. As with most
practices, there are subtle nuances surrounding how they're performed that can
dramatically affect their value. In some organizations, reviews are a valuable
aspect of the software lifecycle. In others, they are a necessary evil tainted
with political bureaucracy and big egos. Sub-optimal reviews conducted late in
the lifecycle are often misguided due to few objective guidelines that help
guide the review process. When used throughout the development lifecycle, code
and design quality metrics are valuable inputs to the review process.
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Articles
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 Using Agile metrics to manage projects and
strengthen organizational transformation.
Traditional program management offices (PMOs) are responsible
for providing checks and balances to the development and IT organizations regarding
budget and schedule. Oversight and
management that comes from the PMO drives certain behaviors in the project
managers (PMs) and therefore in the project staff. Similarly, the Agile PMO provides certain
checks and balance, but principally focuses on the holistic well-being of the
project. This difference in 'tone' not
only drives different behaviors, but also can help to support dramatic
transformation within the organization.
The driving force becomes encapsulated in the difference in perspective
between traditional earned value reporting and Agile's achieved value
reporting.
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The Agile Manager
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 Performance
and quality metrics are not indigenous to traditional IT practices. When metrics are brought to bear to achieve
greater transparency or compliance in an IT project, they are imposed on teams,
grafted on top of day-to-day execution.
The poor alignment of metric to execution means project managers must
constantly translate work effort into progress measures. Because these acts of translation take a lot
of time and are not natural fits with execution, project management is often
opaque and inconsistent. By comparison, business-oriented
metrics are natural byproducts of the way work is performed in Agile
practices. Measures of progress, quality,
and functional completeness are extensions of day-to-day execution of Agile
practices. This means that instead of
chasing after management data, the Agile manager is able to concentrate his or
her efforts managing the people in a team to achieve the business goal.
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Featured Books
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 This is
an amazing book! The
Art of Agile Development is nothing less than 10+ years' worth of agile
development experience distilled into a single compendium of practical insight
and mindful application of Agile practices and principles. James Shore and Shane Warden have succeeded
marvelously in doing exactly what they set out to do: "packed everything we
knew about the day-to-day practice of agile development into 400 pages ... to provide
a complete how-to guide and starter kit for beginning and intermediate agile
practitioners" (quoted from the
book's website).
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From the Editor
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 Without highly-skilled team members, Agile teams will not succeed. This does not mean that organizations must to overhaul or outsource their existing staff. Rather, they must leverage the business and subject matter expertise within existing staff and teams, and provide the necessary technical and process training so that their staff can excel with Agile practices.
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 Recently there has been a lot of talk on whether we need an Architect on agile teams or not. There have been never-ending discussions on various forums both inside organizations and out in the public questioning the value that an architect can bring to the agile project where the architecture evolves with every iteration. This has led many traditional Architects to scramble for cover and opened gates for a new breed of architect, the Agile Architect. The traditional ivory tower Architects are gradually proving to be the weakest link in the chain for agile projects. The bulk of the traditional Architect's responsibilities are now split amongst the agile team, thus leaving them without a lot of work that they were previously doing. The Agile Architects are emerging in line with Charles Darwin's theory of "survival of the fittest." The role of an Agile Architect on the team is unquestionable and many agile teams vouch for the fact that he is one of the most valuable members of any agile software development team.
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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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