Posted on October 17th, 2006 in Methodology, Agile by siddharta || No Comment
I got my October 2006 issue of the Communications of the ACM in the post today. The featured topic of this issue is “Flexible and Distributed software processes”, and a lot of articles feature agile software development, especially in the context of distributed software development. If you have ACM digital library access, you can read the articles online at the above link.
The leading article, Flexible and Distributed Software Processes: Old Petunias in New Bowls?” (ACM Digital Library membership required) has some interesting commentaries by well known experts. Although about global software development and distributed teams, much of it is also applicable to co-located teams. Here are some snippets
Continue reading ‘Agile in the Communications of the ACM’ »
Posted on October 11th, 2006 in Methodology, Agile by siddharta || 2 Comments
A few weeks ago, Steve Yegge had a post on Good Agile, Bad Agile which caused a huge flutter in the blogosphere. The reactions on the Extreme Programming list went from “this is the usual ‘I don’t understand agile, so I’ll bash it’ crap” to “listen to your enemies. They’ll tell you things about yourself that your friends never will.” with a whole bunch in between. The post even turned up on Slashdot and Joel. Wow. Steve then posted a followup titled Egomania itself.
I personally think that both the articles have some good parts and some bad parts. He correctly points out that agilists can sometimes be loud and dogmatic.
Having said that, I really do think that agile principles from the Agile Manifesto have a lot of value. Most of the problems associated with agile come from the 5 pitfalls list. Just to summarize, here is the list in short:
Continue reading ‘Agile is not a set of techniques’ »
Posted on August 24th, 2006 in Methodology, Agile by siddharta || 3 Comments
Software processes are like exercise. Everyone knows that its the right thing to do, but most people don’t do it.
Why don’t more people exercise? Because its too hard and it involves too much change. You see, exercising involves things like ‘determination’ and ‘discipline’ and ‘goals’, and who has time for that? An entire industry has evolved around the fact that people would like to be fit but do not like to exercise. At one extreme is the quick fix solution - wear some gadget and get fit without doing anything. At the other extreme are the hardcore fitness people who spend hours in the gym and scoff at any fitness scheme that tries to water down exercise. In the middle are a whole lot of activities that try to make exercise more fun and meaningful. The idea is not to be the fittest that you can possibly be, but to be as fit as you can be, without feeling like giving up.
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Posted on August 20th, 2006 in Methodology, Agile by siddharta || No Comment
The last couple of years have seen agile software development ‘cross the chasm’ from the early adopters to the mainstream. This is great news for agile, but there are some dangers lurking in the background. Here are five points that companies need to watch for when adopting agile processes
Continue reading ‘5 dangers when adopting agile processes - and what to do about them’ »
Posted on May 17th, 2006 in Methodology, Agile by siddharta || No Comment
I recently heard this podcast with Dave Thomas. Dave has talked on many occasions about the Dreyfus model of Skill Acquisition, which is similar to Shu Ha Ri. He also talks in the podcast about some Agile practitioners being dogmatic in their views. So in a sense, listening to the padcast made me go and write these posts, something that I’ve been meaning to do for a long time anyway.
Continue reading ‘Agile is not XP’ »
