If this is your perception of Agile…
And if you’re in the Waterloo, Ontario area, you might want to come out to a Communitech Event on Dec 17.
Are your software projects:
Defect free? Yes ? No
On-time? Yes ? No
Under budget? Yes ? No
Thrilling your users? Yes ? NoIf you answered Yes to all the above questions then congratulations, read no further. If you answered No to one or more then read on.
Since Agile was first introduced in 2001 it has taken the industry by storm. Recent surveys in Dr. Dobb’s Journal (www.ddj.com) have shown that Agile approaches are being adopted in 69% of organizations in North America and that Agile enjoys a significantly higher success rate than traditional projects. In this presentation Scott Ambler will describe what Agile is, address some of the myths that you may have heard, and discuss how Agile will affect your approach to software development. He’ll go beyond the Agile rhetoric surrounding programming and describe how project management, database development, documentation, modeling, user experience, and quality assurance activities are addressed by Agile teams.
Please join us for a complimentary afternoon seminar with Scott Ambler. Scott W. Ambler is the Practice Leader Agile Development at IBM Corporation. Scott is an award-winning author of several books, including books focused on the Unified Process, agile software development, the Unified Modeling language, and CMM-based development. Scott is a regular speaker at international IT conferences and is a contributing editor with Dr. Dobb’s Journal. Scott led the development of several software processes, including Agile Modeling (AM), Agile Data (AD), Enterprise Unified Process (EUP), and Agile Unified Process (AUP) methodologies.This seminar is produced by eLead.Inc in collaboration with Communitech
You can register here. For free (as in beer)!
The Agile series was pulled together by local Agile mavens Declan Whelan of DP Whelan and Associates and Jeff Berardine of Innosphere with support from Communitech. I helped a bit but not nearly enough — sorry guys!
If you’re practicing Agile and love it, or if you’ve tried an Agile method and hated it, or if you’re just Agile curious please come out and join in the discussion. Heck just come out and hear Scott Ambler.
Ilya Grigorik says:
Looking forward to attending this one!
29th November 2007 at 3:27 am
Boris Stefanovic says:
What if I’m a headhunter looking for 4 Agile PMs, at least one of which needs to be Scrum Master?
Actually, I have a more intelligent question than that: I have a client with an existing commitment to Agile that is looking to break it out of the Software Development space and turn it loose on projects in other aspects of their business: setting up call centres, outsourcing, “bricks and mortar” construction… are they dreaming?
They have a very high tolerance for approaching tasks with a “let’s try it and see what happens” approach that brought them Agile in the first place. Are they over-reaching it a bit here? In other words, would any experienced Scrum Master (not just someone who banged out the certification) actually tackle a job like that or would it seem ludicrous?
Thanks in advance for your input.
Boris
29th November 2007 at 4:58 pm
jeff says:
Boris
apologies for the delay. No it doesn’t seem entirely ludicrous considering the cross over of Lean Manufacturing and Lean/Agile methods. If you consider a Scrum Master to be the person who acknowledges that the team is motivated and in the best position to do their job the best *and* they see their role as removing barriers to letting them do their jobs then it *could* make sense.
The challenge is whether or not the culture is ready for this. Typically agile implementations quickly bring to a light a number of (pre-existing) issues. So it depends on how the org will handle that scenario, but if they’re willing to let it loose and make change then I don’t see why it won’t work.
again, apologies for the delay
29th November 2007 at 4:41 pm
Boris Stefanovic says:
Thanks Jeff.
I am still looking but it seems that whenever I tell an established Scrum Master with several years in software development that they might be applying Agile to projects outside the “traditional sphere” of IT the balk. Unfortunately, I suspect those with a Lean manufacturing background, who are perhaps more motivated to consider taking a chance on something new, lack the required Project Management experience in software development teams.
I’ll keep looking, of course, but I’m starting to realize that not all Scrum Masters are as open-minded as you appear to be.
Thanks again for your insight.
Boris
29th November 2007 at 5:34 pm