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Integrating Agile Development
The book opens with a couple of chapters exploring exactly what it means to be an agile development team. The author doesn't spoon feed you a definition. Instead, he takes a look at the Manifesto for Agile Software Development and pulls from that a collection of values important to agile software development. A list of agile principles is presented, and each of these aspects is examined from the angle of what it's trying to accomplish and where it can help when building software.
At this point, the book introduces seven methodologies including The Crystal Methodologies, eXtreme Programming, and Scrum. Each approach is defined by their practices and focus. The author does a nice job of telling you where these methodologies excel and even where they don't. The approaches are contrasted, but not with an eye towards finding out who is right and who is wrong. Instead, the author digs for the strengths in each practice.
The next few chapters offer suggestions about what agile practices can do for your development team, and outline how to adopt a few agile practices. This is one of the many places where the book really shines, thanks to its realistic approach. The author knows that not everyone can run out, soak up some eXtreme Programming training, and convert their entire division overnight. If you can, great, but this book is more focused on people who don't meet certain agile requirements and others who just want to test the waters a little. For these groups, there is sensible advice like, "Start by doing X, Y, and Z, because they're great ideas, easy to implement, and will help you a lot." If you like those changes, the author suggests what to try next. Even better, you're told to back away from the changes you don't like, sprinkle in some ideas from other methodologies, and even customize the practices to your needs. That may not be as extreme as some agile developers would prefer you to be, but it is agile programming distilled down to what it can do for you personally. I found that to be a great touch.
With the introduction to this new world of software development covered, the book moves into detailing actual agile practices. Early chapters in this section focus on the programmer, testing, and even the database side of the operation. Later chapters get into management, the project, and an agile development cycle. When a practice is defined, you're warned of prerequisites you should have in place before considering it, offered advice for how to get started with it, and even given a few variations that might work better for your group. I wouldn't say that the detail here is sufficient to teach you all you need to know, instead this section arms you with the knowledge to decide what you should be looking into. To kick-start your research efforts, a practice always ends with a list of further resources, available both online and in print.
The final chapters of the book get more abstract, dealing with customers, communication, and even just people. There's a lot of sound advice hidden away in these pages for some difficult challenges. I personally learned a lot about how agile development deals with customers and I have a few new ideas I'm anxious to try on my clients.
As an added bonus, the book has a very nice layout, filled with intelligent, witty prose and good looking charts. These effects are always subtle but can make a text a lot more approachable. I believe my only complaint was that the author tends to throw around acronyms assuming you know what they stand for. I think he even eventually got around to defining all but a couple, but not always when you first encounter them. A glossary probably could have helped in this case.
In summary, this book is agile programming for everyone. As a one-man operation, common practices like pair programming aren't even an option for me. The author knows that the methodologies aren't one-size-fits-all, and really focus on exactly what they can do for you, whatever your own needs may be. If you don't follow any development strategy (hope that's not true), would like to know more about the agile practices without joining a cult, or even just want to stay sane in your traditional software development company, Integrating Agile Development in the Real World will give you plenty of fresh ideas.
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I WISH agile programming would catch on where I work. The big thing taking hold here now is TSP (Team Software Process), the most top-heavy methodology I've ever seen inflicted on developers, and I've been writing software for nearly 30 years.
Example: the process dictates doing a manual code review individually and in a group, BEFORE COMPILING, to look for things like missing semicolons and other routine errors that the compiler would catch all by itself. If you've done your reviews right, then the code should compile the first time without errors.
Seems like I've heard all this before. Like around 1978.
As part of a team which has quite successfully used XP:
It sounds to me like there was some misconception about the processes and principles surrounding XP here. XP claims that out of the four following variables of software development, only one is generally variable:
- Length of project
- Budget of project
- Code Quality
- Scope of project
The length and budget of a project are often fixed, and developers should not be required to sacrifice code quality. Therefore, the scope of the project is where one can gain the most flexibility.
Part of being able to change the requirements each and every day is that priorities will get shuffled around. This means that some "requirements" will fall off the end of the project in favor of other features, or changes to already implemented features. The customers I work with are greatly appreciative of this power.
I would say that if a project is going "over time" or "over budget," then the client and developers are not working together well enough to determine what will provide the client with the best business value.
As for estimates, we generally work under the assumption that estimates are not promises. That's even why a developer is supposed to give an estimate quality. So I could say... hey client, this looks like it will take a day, but my estimate is a shot in the dark. Thus, the client knows that it might take three days instead, and prioritize it accordingly.
In return, the client is supposed to leave the technical decisions to the developers (like, for example, when to refactor chunks of code). Some customers understand this, and some need help in order to do so.
Anyway. XP probably isn't for everyone. Some people like the process, some don't. I'm not going to claim it's the *best,* but of the approaches I've taken, I haven't found a better one. If you're curious, yes. My team does work on both large and small projects, and XP seems to work equally well.
Above all else, remember that XP preaches local adaptation, rather than the blind following of procedure. But if it stops being agile, then you're not really following XP.
If you have more information that you'd like to provide, it would be interesting to hear about the details (if you can give them) of your "failed" projects.