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.
Not surprisingly, over one-third of the attendees came from ISVs and consultants. The ISVs use Agile processes on their product development and on their internal systems development projects. Consulting firms offering mentoring, development and management services to Agile teams. [I overheard one developer say that he couldn't imagine anyone starting an Agile team without hiring an experienced mentor.] IT developers and managers came from a wide range of industries, led by financial services, insurance, medical services and devices, telecom and online/retail businesses.
Most of the attendees that I spoke to were just starting
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out on Agile projects but they needed no convincing. They were at the conference - at the direction of their management - to figure out how and where they could use Agile processes and tools on their projects.
Amidst all the buzz, a few things really stood out:
There are great minds in small companies. The really interesting ideas are coming from small vendors and consulting firms. Companies such as Net Objectives, Rally, VersionOne, CC Pace, ThoughtWorks, Valtech and Digital Focus were the standouts. Their mix of pragmatism and leadership was exactly what these attendees needed. But these companies don't yet have the experience or clout to capture more traditional IT organizations' budgets.
The old guard is lagging. None of the traditional software tool vendors, such as IBM, Microsoft, Serena or Borland, had anything really exciting or new to present. Sure, IBM and Microsoft were gold sponsors and gave a few interesting presentations. But none of these traditional tool vendors was able to position its legacy products in this new context. Too bad, because that's what many of the attendees needed: help in leveraging existing tool investments on these new and exciting projects.
India is out; Russia and Eastern Europe are in. A number of new offshore consulting firms like StarSoft Development Labs, Luxoft and Murano Software are running distributed Agile projects. No CMMi for them; to effectively compete on both the price and time to market dimensions, they're investing in Agile processes from the start and hiring developers in these new markets.
Metrics are troubling. I attended a number of sessions focused on how to measure the successes (or failures) of Agile projects. My favorite was one given by Deborah Hartmann and Robin Dymond. They proposed a framework for "appropriate" business- and technically-oriented metrics that was very similar to the research I've written over the past few years.[1] Metrics that communicate the amount of business value that Agile teams deliver will be key to these teams' success.
The gurus still need to come down to earth. While the content at this conference was far more practical than in previous years, many of the sessions were still quite theoretical and lacked the specific "feet on the street" advice that the attendees were seeking. The audiences didn't need convincing, they needed help doing. It will be interesting to see if the SD Best Practices conference coming up in September, with many of the same speakers and content, provides more actionable advice.
We are still in this Catch 22 situation: thousands of users are interested in Agile techniques and need help in the form of services and tools. Small vendors with great ideas have trouble raising funding for a market that has undetermined size and potential. Large, established vendors are either delivering incremental [read: barely Agile] support or none at all. Companies like IBM and Microsoft, that have so much Agile expertise within their ranks, need to translate that knowledge into useful products and services.
Has Agile development hit the mainstream? I do think so. But there's still a lot of proselytizing to do. We need to get the mainstream vendor and consulting communities to truly get on board and demonstrate their ability to address developers' needs. With that, the "Agile market" will grow, VCs will invest, corporate laggards will buy in and all will benefit.
Liz Barnett is the Editor in Chief of the Agile Journal and Principal Analyst at EZ Insight Inc. Previously Liz spent 10 years as a Vice President and Research Analyst at Forrester Research, joining Forrester as a result of its acquisition of Giga Information Group. Liz held management positions at Accenture, PepsiCo, and Atelier Research. She also was the Research Director for the advanced software development and advanced network computing research services at New Science Associates, prior to its acquisition by Gartner Group. Liz holds a patent for developing a distributed application development/CASE tool. Liz earned her B.S. in operations research and industrial engineering at Cornell University.
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