Posted by Robert Merrill on October 8, 2009 under Agile Methods, Software-Intensive Businesses | 
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If your firm hires or contracts programmers, and your business results depend on their work (and if your business results don’t, why did you hire or contract programmers?), this question is for you. Read more of this article »
Posted by Robert Merrill on February 1, 2009 under Agile Methods | Be the First to Comment
When software methodologists argue, they usually assume the proper application of their favorite. Unfortunately, in the real world, methdologies are seldom applied as their advocates intend.
Waterfall devolves to a “team” of isolated individuals, specialized by role, each accountable to a different manager, producing a very high ratio of paper to software. And the latter is late, over budget, sort of what the buyers asked for, and doesn’t deliver nearly as much value as promised in order to get the project funded.
Agile devolves to “Cowboy Coding,” Read more of this article »
Posted by Robert Merrill on January 30, 2009 under Agile Methods | 2 Comments to Read
A few weeks ago, I ran across a very provocative post by James Shore called The Decline and Fall of Agile, followed by an equally provocative (and long) string of comments.
Mr. Shore argues that many firms think they are adopting Agile, specifically Scrum, without really understanding what’s essential and what can be safely left out. I heard my first hint of this around the pool at SD West in 2003, with someone saying, “We do XP, except we work 80-hour weeks, scope and schedule are fixed, and we’re not doing any automated testing.” “Here we go again,” I remember thinking.
One of the many commenters pointed out that Agile is merely following the Gartner Hype Cycle, and is now sliding down the backside of the Crest of Inflated Expectations towards the Trough of Disillusionment. That sounds about right to me.
One of the things I tell my clients is that Agile methods are by their nature adaptable and pragmatic, but that they also have the equivalent of load-bearing walls. Destroy the integrity of one of those, and you collapse Read more of this article »
