If it won’t fit within a sprint, get creative. One area that causes concern among software developers using Scrum is the short sprint time boxes. Specifically, how can they develop complex algorithms in short bursts? We’ve all heard that stories should be kept small so that each one can be fully implemented and tested in […]
Month: July 2011
Enterprise Agile Adoption Requires a Phased Approach
Changing a major process in any enterprise is never easy. Software development certainly qualifies as a major process. If you’re thinking about having your enterprise software development teams change the process they follow, it won’t be easy. Let’s assume the current process is more ad-hoc than not. You may call it waterfall, spiral, unified or […]
5 Early Warning Signs of Agile Project Trouble
Your agile project is losing momentum. Things aren’t going as well as they should, though it’s not clear why. Here are five early warning signs that an agile project isn’t so agile and may be headed for trouble. 1. Meetings keep getting longer and there are too many of them. If your daily standups are […]
Don’t Wrap a Straitjacket Around Your Project!
Three constraints dominate discussions about controlling projects — time, cost and scope. I’d like to add people and quality to that list. Many managers try to control all five constraints and end up controlling none. Common wisdom says you have to let at least one constraint float free if you want to tightly control the […]
The Benefits of Agile Development May Not Be What You Expect
Why do organizations decide to try agile software development? The simple response is that they want to improve their software development results. Sure, but what exactly are they trying to “improve“? Here are the most common improvement candidates: Time to market – they want to generate software releases in less time from start to finish. […]
Don’t Just Ask Questions, Explore Possibilities
Should the Product Owner have all the answers to business and functional questions that arise during a sprint? If she doesn’t, should the business stakeholders have all those answers? If not, what about the end users of the software? Similar questions apply on the technical side. Should the software developers be able to answer any […]
Documents Should Encourage Team Collaboration Not Kill It
Much of our communication is in writing. We write plans, requirements, specifications, reports, code, tests, etc. For a major IT project, the volume of paper can be enormous, but is it valuable? In today’s fast-paced, high-stress, businesses, no one has the time to read volumes of information no matter how nicely formatted and presented. Yet, […]
7 Tips for Creating an Agile Work Environment
Okay, full disclosure, what follows is common sense — basic managerial stuff. But, it’s doubly important for any organization that wants to be agile. Applying command-and-control management techniques to agile development slows everyone down and causes more problems that it solves. Don’t just skim over this list. Pick an item from it and get to […]
Scrum for One Can Be Done — Almost
I’ve touched upon some of the difficulties in expanding Scrum to very large projects. I don’t believe that the Scrum of Scrums approach really works. It helps solve the management problem but the system engineering problem is left untouched. Not good. That issue aside, I’ve been thinking about the opposite problem. Can a lone software […]
Scrum’s Sprints Are Not Mini-Waterfalls
Teams that have extensive waterfall development experience often encounter a common problem when they adopt an agile approach like Scrum. The problem results from applying waterfall development to every sprint. The result is a project consisting of a series of mini-waterfalls. For example, let’s say the team selects 4-week sprints. It feels quite natural for […]
Enterprise Software is Complex; Starting Right Makes It Simpler
Complexity is a fact of life. Many aspects of our daily lives are complex from personal relationships to tax documents to software projects — they all present us with challenges we’d probably rather avoid. I can’t help with relationships or taxes but I can shed some light on making software projects simpler. My focus is […]
The Software You Need May Not Be What You Want
Developing software is a lot like many major decisions in life. For example… Let’s say you own a home and you need to protect some tools and equipment. You may have garden tools, a lawn mower, maybe snow shovels and a snowblower. You need a place to store them. The simplest and lowest cost solution […]
Multitasking Doesn’t Work on PCs and Mobile Devices
Lately, multitasking is a hot topic in the smartphone and tablet markets. Google’s Android has it and Apple’s iOS does not. Does it matter? Yes, it does but not in the way you think. Android (and RIM’s QNX) support true multitasking whereby every app has access to the all system resources whether the user is […]