All articles about Agile

Agile Development, Blog

Software Development is Communication

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The longer I stay in the software development business the more I am convinced of certain things. One thing that has hit home recently is this very interesting fact – on the whole, those in charge of software delivery are fundamentally ignorant of how software is made. I have written previously about how software development is a creative process, but what amazes me is that the people who staff and manage software development fail to see how much communication is necessary to software development.

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Agile Coaching, Agile Transitioning, Blog, General, General Agile

Apke's Law

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Most of my 7+ years of Agile coaching and scrum mastering has been working with existing waterfall organizations and helping them become more agile. During this period I have seen a wide range of companies and a wide range of successful adoption, but I have noticed one thing that is constant. This was brought home recently as I reflect on my most recent agile presentation/discussion given at Geekdom in San Antonio last week.

In this Agile open forum the majority of the questions dealt with transitioning from waterfall to agile. This is where I first publicly broached Apke’s law which states:

Your transition to agile will only go as far as the highest ranking manager who understands and supports it.

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Agile Coaching, General, General Agile

Software Development is Like 30 Rock – A New Software Development Metaphor Part 2

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Back in January I stressed the need to come up with some new metaphors regarding software development because our old metaphors were causing some problems. I still believe this to be true more than ever. Developers are not just cogs, but are individuals. Research has shown that the most productive developers are up to 10 times more productive than others (see Peopleware for more). You cannot just plug any developer into a product team and expect them to perform at the average level for that team. Domain knowledge counts as well.

However, one thing that I did not do a great job of was suggesting a replacement metaphor. The one I used was the film industry. While I was correct that development is a creative art, it has recently been pointed out to me that making motion pictures usually takes a great deal of upfront planning and design – not a good analogy for an Agile advocate. This misstatement showed that I knew less about the film industry than I do software development.

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Agile Transitioning, Blog, General, General Agile

Philosophy Versus Practice

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When trying to get waterfall teams and organizations to move to a more Agile development methodology there are two training strategies – philosophy and practice.

The philosophical approach relies on teaching the history of software development and the philosophy behind Agile – the manifesto and principles. This approach assumes that as long as one is equipped with the proper overriding principles then one will be able to make the correct decisions as challenges occur.

The practice strategy relies heavily on training the ceremonies, especially scrum ceremonies like standups, retrospectives, reviews, etc. This approach assumes that if you do the rights things that overtime the reasons for the practices will become apparent.

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Agile Coaching, Agile Development, Agile Team, Blog

Want a Quick Agile Win? Try Office Hours

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When you are an Agile Coach you sometimes must resign yourself to the fact that it will usually take team members awhile to get it and victories can be few and far between. One thing that I can recommend for a quick win and something that has worked well for me on multiple occasions (when it could be implemented) is something that I called office hours. I can only assume that I am not the one who invented this, but it is something that I “discovered” independently to solve the issue of resources being pulled into unproductive meetings when I needed them to be on task for our stories.

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