Big Blue & agile

An article on Search Software Quality discusses IBM’s transition to agile. There are a few key points to take away from this article.

• Don’t worry about choosing a methodology such as Scrum, XP, or RUP. Instead, avoid dogma and focus on making people productive.  In other words, focus on little “a”, not Big “A”.
• Continuous integration (CI) is valuable, but can also present significant challenges early. The positive affect of CI is felt beyond just the build, but also in how a team organizes the build, manages dependencies between software modules, and more. CI has a positive architectural affect, too. Quoting Sue McKinney, VP of IBM’s development transformation…”Categorically every project development team has benefited from focusing on CI. Although they had problems at the beginning, they’ve gotten much better.” Categorically!
• The average team size is between 150 and 200 people, and many are globally dispersed. Proof that agile does work for large, distributed teams. Though additional process controls may be necessary.  In other words, rightsize the process when it makes sense.
• The transition to agility may be part of a larger transformation effort, but attack the major pain points first. Instead of completely revamping process, focus first on fixing the aspects of process that were causing the most problems.
• At the end of each iteration, deliver! Deliver running code that can be demonstrated to customers. Use a functional system to elicit important customer feedback. This a common mistake many teams make with iterative development. Nothing is ever delivered. Delivery doesn’t mean it must be deployed to a production environment. Delivery means the application is accessible to customers, and their feedback is encouraged. Frequent delivery increases project transparency.
• The criteria for success is based upon a team’s productivity. To ensure the process improvement effort is working demands measurements. Using metrics to measure IT efficiency and effectiveness is key.

Each of these are important points to keep in mind as teams seek to improve their software development process.

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