Software Development: Agile, Team Size and Dynamics | shmula. I’ve long ranted about Amazon’s 2-Pizza Team, which is defined as the following: a team where the team size is no larger than 2 pizzas can feed. Amazon realized early on that in order to cut software development time, the solution was *NOT* to put more people on the project. What is required is a team, where the roles are defined and each member has the right skill for that role, and following a lean, agile, method — all focused on the customer. Agile Methodology Agile is a response to the well known issues in software development: rigid planning and nazi-like fidelity to original software requirements leads to customer needs not being met. Alistair Cockburn, one of the Agile Authors explains Agile this way: Some of Agile Methodology comes from the manufacturing world, specifically the Toyota Production System, but better known as Lean Manufacturing.
For me, it is equally fascinating to apply the principles of Lean to software. Team Size and Dynamics At Amazon, there were six roles. Agile 101: Getting Started | VersionOne. Jim Collins on 3 ways to avoid demotivating people at work. | Connecting the South African Scrum community. Book List | ScrumSense.com. Scrum Alliance - Transforming the World of Work. Scrum Student Resources. Continuous Integration for Everybody — TeamCity. Pivotal Tracker - Simple, Effective Agile Project Management & Team Collaboration, from Pivotal Labs. Scrum cheat sheet. Scrum: A Manager's Guide: A Non-technical Introduction to the Most Popular Agile Process - Mike Cohn Signature Book Series. Agile South Africa - industry led agile thought leadership. The role of leadership in software development. The Hacker Chick Blog: Agile Leadership: Methodology Ain't Enough. A lot of people say you can’t be a good software manager without really understanding software development.
But, let’s face it, people who understand software development are a dime a dozen in our industry. What we really need are people who understand leadership & management. I mean… you know the drill – when was the last time a software project failed for technical reasons? And so, it was very cool to hear David Spann share his research on Finding and Developing Agile Leader’s at last week’s ScrumClub. It’s simply not enough to know the latest agile practices. Now, I don’t want to mislead – David isn’t saying agile leaders don’t have to know anything about software development. David identified 5 underlying beliefs that a successful agile leader should hold.How many of these do you hold? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. David identified the behaviors that make agile leaders successful and from that came two very interesting observations: Strategic.
Tactical. Innovative. Excitement. Communication. New! Software Engineering at Oxford | Agile Methods ( AGM ) Agile methods are challenging conventional wisdom regarding systems development processes and practices; effectively putting process on a diet and investing in people and teams. This course will enable today's software development professional to understand the heart of agility and will cover both the theory and practice of agile methods. Course dates Objectives At the end of the course you will be able to: Compare and contrast the different agile methodsDetermine the suitability of agile methods for a particular projectEvaluate how well a project is following agile principles, and assist the project to become more agile (where appropriate)Understand the relationship between the customer and the development team in agile projects and the responsibilities of both communities.
Contents Agile Manifesto. The foundation of the agile methods. Agile Methods. An overview of the agile methods: XP, Scrum, Crystal, FDD, Lean and DSDM. Agile Practices. Persistent Questions. Why There Should Not Be a "Release Backlog" | Mike Cohn's Blog - Succeeding With Agile® Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit (Agile Software Development Series): Mary Poppendieck, Tom Poppendieck: Books. Agile Estimating and Planning (Robert C. Martin Series): Mike Cohn: Books. Coding Horror: Are You Creating Micromanagement Zombies?
Do you manage other programmers, in any capacity? Then take Kathy Sierra's quiz: Do you pride yourself on being "on top of" the projects or your direct reports? Do you have a solid grasp of the details of every project? Do you believe that you could perform most of the tasks of your direct reports, and potentially do a better job? Do you pride yourself on frequent communication with your employees? Does that communication include asking them for detailed status reports and updates? Do you believe that being a manager means that you have more knowledge and skills than your employees, and thus are better equipped to make decisions? A "yes" to any of these -- even a half-hearted "maybe" -- means you might be creating Micromanagement Zombies. That's right, Zombies. Beyond that, who the heck wants to work with zombies anyway? Building teams is like building software. Wondering what number one encompasses?
In the end, isn't trust what this is about? When Agile Projects Go Bad - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership. CIO — Agile project management has taken the software development community by storm, with terms like sprint and Scrum becoming part of everyday team conversations. But as Agile techniques are incorporated into company practices, there exists the very real danger that Agile will be adopted in name, but not in spirit. With this in mind, we turned to the original authors of the 2001 Agile Manifesto for advice on how Agile can be subverted. Paint-by-Numbers Innovation A typical developer pain point is when Agile techniques are applied dogmatically, without thinking through whether a specific practice makes sense for a given task.
They confuse checklists with real Agile adoption. According to Alistair Cockburn, one of the original 17 signatories to the manifesto, some of this weakness can be traced back to how people acquire new skills. People tend to have three stages of skill acquisition, he says. When companies apply Agile practices without self-examination, Beck says, peril lies ahead.