XP2006: Day 3 - Agile Concepts in Traditional Evironments
What could go wrong if bit10 went “agile”?
This was a workshop where we brainstormed common experiences of trying to implement agile methods…
Common issues for development
- Developers who don’t wish to communicate as much as Agile demands
- Developers who don’t like pair programming
- Developers who don’t know how to test
- Testers who don’t have automated tools
- Senior developers who don’t want to change because they know best and they are good at what they do so why change?
- Difficulties with test driven development - reluctance/ not understanding
- Developers who amend code (behind the scenes) when this isn’t good for the team as a whole
- Developers who don’t like stand up meetings
Common issues for customers
- Not having time to devote to the project
- Not being skilled in testing
- Wanting everything in the first iteration
- Customers who don’t have the real decision making power
- Customers who test the version before it’s ready
- Customers who don’t appreciate code that isn’t 100% ready
- Too many customers
- Who is the customer?
Common issues in culture and management
- Some teams don’t want to be “self-managing” they want to be told what to do
- Some project managers don’t know how to plan under agile
- Any change is painful
- People’s roles change
- If the company values aren’t about communication then Agile won’t work
- Visibility for senior managers
Tips
- Link progress to something visible like a pie chart in excel
- Create user stories for technical aspects such as backward compatibility as well as other user requirements
- Use “information radiators” like whitboards etc
- Take things slow, adopt Scrum first then XP practices
- Let senior people help you implement Agile
- Gain customer buy-in and they become an ambassador for your project
