The Future: Agile Methods


According to the Standish Group, the top 10 factors for a project's success are shown in Figure I.4.

Figure I.4. The CHAOS Ten project success factor
(source: standishgroup.com).


Note

Most of the stats provided in this document are taken from the Standish Group International, Inc. Although these are taken from one source, they match what I have experienced over my 20 years in Information Technology (IT).


Many of the problems outlined earlier in this document can be solved using newer, truly iterative style methodologies.

In 2001, 17 methodologists came together to unify their methodologies under one umbrella. They jointly defined the term Agile (agilemanifesto.org, agilealliance.com). The remarkable thing about this event was that these 17 methodologists agreed on a common set of principles (see story at martinfowler.com/articles/agileStory.html).

Some of the underlying values of the various Agile methods are the following:

  • Be customer focused In short, satisfy the customer. Develop only what is requested, nothing more, nothing less.

  • Embrace change In today's fast-paced world, change is bound to happen. Users should be able to change the system (they are paying for it). So it is better to accept this fact and embrace it.

  • Iterative development Develop working software in small chunks (for example, two-month major release with two-week iterations resulting in production-ready code). Favor building software in increments with continuous enhancement (via refactoring) versus big requirements and design up front (BRUF/BDUF).

  • Motivated people Build projects around a motivated staff; give them the environment and space they need to get the job done.

  • Communication This is the key to success, and accordingly, users, developers, testers, and other stakeholders must communicate well. Also, favor face-to-face communications (versus emails, for example).

  • Measure of progress Use working software (code, database) as a measure of progress versus documentation and project plans.

  • Sustainable development Project stakeholders (users, developers, testers, and so on) must be able to maintain a constant pace of software development (see iterative development above).

  • Simplistic elegance Favor high-impact business features versus overengineered or cool technical solutions.

  • Continued efficiency Capture lessons learned, good design, best practices, templates, checklists, glossary, and the like.



Agile Java Development with Spring, Hibernate and Eclipse
Agile Java Development with Spring, Hibernate and Eclipse
ISBN: 0672328968
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 219

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