Project Inception: A JumpStart Workshop in Action

The mapplet project started out as a not entirely fictitious training example for ESRI developers, which resulted in a preliminary model with use cases, domain objects, and robustness and sequence diagrams. The idea of using the project as our central book example didn’t transpire until several months (nearly a year) had elapsed after this training workshop. The first domain model that we show in the second image in the “What Is ArcGIS?” sidebar earlier in the chapter (which is more detailed than the subsequent ones) was actually a result of the JumpStart workshop.[10.]

The workshop was run by Doug, who had a dual role as instructor and mapplet “customer” for his website. The initial set of requirements (which we show in this chapter) were written by Doug in preparation for the JumpStart class, at which time the team was anticipating using a different version of the ESRI map server software (ArcIMS instead of ArcGIS) and building a Java applet (hence the name “mapplet”) instead of an ASP.NET application. Interestingly, the requirements and use cases (and project nickname) survived these technology changes pretty much intact.

Because the JumpStart class included hands-on development work, it doubled as a timeboxed investigative modeling spike (i.e., prototype) performed by teams with a coach and an on-site customer. Once the requirements were mapped onto use cases (behavior requirements) and the alternative courses were explored in detail, the on-site customer (Doug) wasn’t really needed, so his time was freed up from the project. Speaking from one customer’s perspective, it’s important to note that this project would never have happened if Doug had to be a full-time on-site customer. Like many customers, he is just too busy. We’ve always felt that this over-reliance on an on-site customer was a significant flaw in some agile approaches.

[10.]See www.iconixsw.com/JumpStart.html.



Agile Development with ICONIX Process. People, Process, and Pragmatism
Agile Development with ICONIX Process: People, Process, and Pragmatism
ISBN: 1590594649
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 97

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