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Becoming Agile
IraLaefsky writes "The appropriately titled Becoming Agile: In An Imperfect World by Greg Smith and Ahmed Sidky offers a realistic path to the family of Agile practices which have become prevalent in software development in the last few years. This family of approaches to software development has been widely adopted in the past decade to replace the traditional Waterfall Model of software development, described in a 1970 article by Winston W. Royce 'Managing the Development of Large Software Systems.' The Waterfall Model stressed rigid functional and design specification of the program(s) to be constructed in advance of any code development. While the this methodology and other early formal tools for Software Engineering were infinitely preferable to the chaos and ad-hoc programming-without-design practices of early systems, these first tools ignored the fallibility of initial interviews used to construct initial design and often resulted in massive time and cost overruns." Read below for the rest of IraLaefsky's review.
Becoming Agile: In An Imperfect World
author
Greg Smith and Ahmed Sidky
pages
408 pages
publisher
Manning
rating
9/10
reviewer
IraLaefsky
ISBN
1933988258
summary
provides the tools to introduce and adapt agile practices in a variety of corporate cultures
The Agile methodologies which are described in this text stress an iterative approach to software development, with the continuous involvement of users (or user surrogates). These iterations consist of several week periods (to at most two month intervals) where a concise partial design requirement, story, is translated to a complete executable version of the program which can be demonstrated to users, for their immediate and anticipated criticism and controlled feature addition. These practices have undergone various codifications since the Agile Manifesto of 2001. Among the more popular Agile Menthodologies are Extreme Programming (XP), Crystal Clear and Scrum.
In describing these development methodologies this practical handbook takes an approach sorely needed in descriptions of Information Technology (IT), it assumes that the purchaser is considering employing the technologies described within the context of a real corporate environment with existing strengths and limitations, an existing approach to the problems addressed, and cultural biases concerning the adoption of new technologies. This approach enables the book to be used as a virtual consultant, taking the experiences described in a case study based upon the authors' advisory experience, and the test of organizational readiness for adoption and needs for customization of the technology as true guideline for introducing these practices in culturally and technology appropriate fashion. During the mid 1980s I served as an internal consultant at a large insurance firm, at the time we were considering the introduction of Expert Systems methodologies into the IT organization. I purchased several handbooks which were intended to introduce this new from academia technology to companies in the financial industries. Most of these books did an adequate job of describing the nature and basis of this technology to IT and Business Analysts trained in existing technology. But, all of the available books failed to chart a path for an IT organization with traditional development practices to successfully migrate to the new technology and appropriately translate this technology for business management. Becoming Agile, introduces a new effective method for describing the risks, benefits and appropriate adaptation of a radically new technology to organizations with existing successful and unsuccessful software development practices and a particular business culture.
Important features of this guide include the Sidky Agile Measurement Index (SAMI) which provides guidelines in moving your particular organization to Agile practices, the non-religious presentation of multiple Agile methodologies and approaches (specifically XP and SCRUM), appendices on organizational readiness assessment, phased development within the Agile context, an overview of the Agile process (suitable for business presentation), and the author forum. The importance of recognizing that new technology methodologies such as Agile Practices must be introduced and carried out in the context of a specific organization, with its own strengths and foibles, cannot be overemphasized. Step-by-step directions and illustrations are given for choosing an appropriate target application for the initial introduction of these methodologies, and each stage of implementation and their possible stumbling blocks are carefully outlined.
That it provides the tools to introduce and adapt these practices in a variety of corporate cultures, with varying degrees of technical sophistication is an invaluable advantage over other Agile texts and will save the organization many thousands of dollars in consulting fees. My only minor nit with this exceptionally fine introduction to Agile Methodologies is that some of the illustration appear to have been formatted in PC-based tools such as VISIO and PowerPoint and require a bit of squinting to study in the smaller book format. With this trivial exception I would award this excellent guide and virtual consultant, an almost perfect nine out of ten review, and recommend it to any organization seeking to intelligently adopt Agile Practices.
The print edition is available at all retailers, while the ebook can be purchased exclusively through the Manning E-Book Storefront.
You can purchase Becoming Agile: ...in an imperfect world from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
In describing these development methodologies this practical handbook takes an approach sorely needed in descriptions of Information Technology (IT), it assumes that the purchaser is considering employing the technologies described within the context of a real corporate environment with existing strengths and limitations, an existing approach to the problems addressed, and cultural biases concerning the adoption of new technologies. This approach enables the book to be used as a virtual consultant, taking the experiences described in a case study based upon the authors' advisory experience, and the test of organizational readiness for adoption and needs for customization of the technology as true guideline for introducing these practices in culturally and technology appropriate fashion. During the mid 1980s I served as an internal consultant at a large insurance firm, at the time we were considering the introduction of Expert Systems methodologies into the IT organization. I purchased several handbooks which were intended to introduce this new from academia technology to companies in the financial industries. Most of these books did an adequate job of describing the nature and basis of this technology to IT and Business Analysts trained in existing technology. But, all of the available books failed to chart a path for an IT organization with traditional development practices to successfully migrate to the new technology and appropriately translate this technology for business management. Becoming Agile, introduces a new effective method for describing the risks, benefits and appropriate adaptation of a radically new technology to organizations with existing successful and unsuccessful software development practices and a particular business culture.
Important features of this guide include the Sidky Agile Measurement Index (SAMI) which provides guidelines in moving your particular organization to Agile practices, the non-religious presentation of multiple Agile methodologies and approaches (specifically XP and SCRUM), appendices on organizational readiness assessment, phased development within the Agile context, an overview of the Agile process (suitable for business presentation), and the author forum. The importance of recognizing that new technology methodologies such as Agile Practices must be introduced and carried out in the context of a specific organization, with its own strengths and foibles, cannot be overemphasized. Step-by-step directions and illustrations are given for choosing an appropriate target application for the initial introduction of these methodologies, and each stage of implementation and their possible stumbling blocks are carefully outlined.
That it provides the tools to introduce and adapt these practices in a variety of corporate cultures, with varying degrees of technical sophistication is an invaluable advantage over other Agile texts and will save the organization many thousands of dollars in consulting fees. My only minor nit with this exceptionally fine introduction to Agile Methodologies is that some of the illustration appear to have been formatted in PC-based tools such as VISIO and PowerPoint and require a bit of squinting to study in the smaller book format. With this trivial exception I would award this excellent guide and virtual consultant, an almost perfect nine out of ten review, and recommend it to any organization seeking to intelligently adopt Agile Practices.
The print edition is available at all retailers, while the ebook can be purchased exclusively through the Manning E-Book Storefront.
You can purchase Becoming Agile: ...in an imperfect world from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Every decade or generation management and process fads change. All of them have their faults and all of them have their benefits, and none are ideal for all situations.
I wonder what the fad of the 2020s will be?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Waterfall crushes a piece of my soul every day.
Oh, right, yet another valiant effort at demolishing a strawman of the Waterfal Model... which never really meant the carricature opposed by the "agile" crowd, and wasn't applied that way. Ever heard of iterations? Right. Apparently the agile crowd still never heard that anyone else uses those.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Put down the Cheetos, lard-ass.
of agile software development.
http://www.softwarereality.com/lifecycle/xp/case_against_xp.jsp
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-agile-bad-agile_27.html
A new entry for you Buzzword Bingo cards. The big question is whether "Agile Computing" and "Agile Development" should be separate squares or lumped under "Agile"?
I vote for a single "Agile" square.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The best programmers utilize domain specific knowledge gained through years of experience to perform the project design and development tasks that make sense. Trying to generalize one model to fit all domains is doomed to failure. Mainframe COBOL screens work differently than web screens which work differently than low level screen drivers and so on.
If you're starting work in a new domain, no methodology is magically going to make things work. New domains of development require plenty of experimentation and failure. How to best build the project is going to depend on what comes out of that experimentation.
And above all, the most important factor is people. You need smart people. No amount of clever methodology is going to make mediocre programmers create a great project. And for smart people, SDLC usually stands in the way of what they already know works best.
So we've gone from over-designing systems to under-designing systems.
How about right-designing a system based on the complexity of the scope and the key personnel involved?
Is that crazy?
But our company software has a large installed base and we need to fix bugs in existing code and somehow graft new functionalities into existing architecture with full backward compatibility for old saved data. And the skill set of coders varies widely. There are just a couple who can even touch isoparametric element stiffness matrix code, to name just one example. I still dont know how agile is going to change the way those two guys work.
I see the advantages of early feedback, and early testing, testing partial implementations etc. But at some point for some kind of code development, Agile may not be the best way to do the code. And I am hoping the training will shed light on where I can use Agile and where I should stay clear of it. I don't want to jump on a band wagon because it is the latest and then have a minor revolt among my padavans.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
My preferred approach these days is what I think is technically called Evolutionary Prototyping. Basically you start with some rough requirements, make something to show people, get more refined requirements, and repeat. At some point when the product is useful, you go live, but in reality you're never done and just the time between deployments gets longer.
This approach is horrible for things that have to work perfectly the first time (e.g. rockets to Mars), but for web development seems to be a decent approach. It's also hard to estimate how long something will take, as the requirements aren't known up front. Still, it's what I've been using for years. I don't think I knew what it was called until our organization brought in a consultant to talk about this stuff.
When you use the Waterfall Model there's bound to be some splashback...
The attempt to write a Python implementation in Python, PyPy, turned into a death march. The project has been underway since at least 2003 (when they had their first "sprint"), never produced a usable system, and the European Union pulled the plug on funding. But the project limps on. There's a released version. It's slower than CPython. There's supposed to be a "just in time" compiler Real Soon Now. (This is try #2 at a JIT, not counting the schemes for outputting Java bytecode and Javascript.) Six years in on a compiler project, and no product.
The PyPy project is very "agile". They have "sprints". They have "flexibility". They have nightly builds. They have mailing lists and trackers. They support multiple output back-ends. They have about 50 contributors. What they don't have is a usable product.
Meanwhile, one programmer produced Shed Skin, which compiles Python to C++, with a speed gain of 5x to 50x over CPython.
When the problem is dominated by design and architecture, "agile" doesn't help.
Actually, I hope you realize that -- since it's referenced even in the review here -- the 1970 article by Royce which described it (albeit not actually using the term "waterfall") was a description of a dysfunctional process which doesn't work right for software. That article wasn't a formalization of the waterfall model, but a critique of it. (And a modification to something that works better, at that.)
It's not even the only one. Several authors and books exist about making software development work, _long_ before there even was such a thing as the XP manifesto or the word agile.
So at the very least we have the first strawman: that we needed the Agile crowd to come along and wake us up to the fact that the waterfall doesn't work. It was widely known that it doesn't work, at _least_ since 1970. You know, the fun times before microprocessors and personal computers and when even Unix was still just a cutesy personal experiment.
The model actually doesn't come from computing but from RL construction and partially manufacturing. That's the place where the costs get prohibitively higher if you discover a mistake after you built the whole building. And while _some_ misguided MBAs have always tried to treat programming like a generic assembly-line operation -- including using methodologies like this one, which are utterly inapropriate -- it's hardly been the standard, de facto and de jure methodology in computing. The pretense that somehow if you're not doing a crap^H^H^H^H agile job, you're one of those using the waterfall model (never mind that it was discredited for 3 decades already) is the strawman that irks me the most. Yes, some islands of insanity exist. You have my sympathy if you work for one. No, it's not the standard in programming. No, we don't need a wakeup call or extreme methodologies to know it doesn't work. We knew that already. At least since 1970.
And in reality even the places which go somewhat waterfall-y... well, let's just say that any place that's ever had a change request or made a version 2.0 of a product, essentially has iterations. Not the best form of them, to be sure, but it is iterations. Requirements change after code has been written too.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Who here has actually used Agile for embedded systems work? What were your experiences?
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
I think the appeal with agile development is that it removes any barriers that programmers might have, such as rigid milestones, etc, and basically allows management to do what they want in terms of setting goals. It also is appealing to management because the knowledge sharing implies that they can get rid of their most expensive employees after a period of time (once the knowledge has dispersed). Specialized knowledge is an anathema to management, as it means that you have to pay that person more, and it's critical to the business, it's harder to fire them.
We have to evaluate agile based on it's real world results, not what the books describe. In the real-world, agile creates a very high-pressure work environment, where personal space is non-existent, everyone is watching you, and your work is constantly on display. This pressure can produce productivity gains but I would say that in the long run these gains aren't sustainable. I think agile is a very poor fit for your average introvert, which, imagine that, describes most programmers very well. What I believe will happen is that over time the better developers will move to a work place where things aren't quite so agile.
In the mean time, throwing out such ideas as design first, is going to cost us, big time. I think that software quality will drop, but it won't be obvious, as "quality" and "productivity" aren't things that are easily measurable. Often times, managers walk through a room, and if they see a bunch of people typing away or debating some design issue, then they see that busyness as productivity. No, I think the drop in productivity will become apparent when non-agile competitors clean their clocks, but then it will be too late.
My biggest problem with quick prototypes are the users that expect too much.
Me: Here's the prototype. It's black and white, but the finished product will be in full color.
Them: This menu item is supposed to be green.
Me: That's because the prototype is in black and white. We're just trying to get the text and spacing correct
Them: That item is supposed to be red...
Managing user's expectations during the prototype phase can be a full-time job. (:-(
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Scrum has one good point - show your code to your customer often and apply his comments. But that works only for GUI or web. I cannot imagine that in, say, medical software. For instance, one of my colleagues had to optimize crucial piece of code (some heavy math for CAT scanner). It took him several months. Only thing he could say to the customer was like "it is now two times faster" or "it is now 3.45 times faster". Not something you can really get some useful feedback on.
In another company, we were supposed to do a project for GE, and there was some serious GUI there, but their office was some several thousands miles from us and I really didn't know how we would make regular meetings with them as Scrum required. Also, they had some very elaborate specs and they did not see too much point of Scrum methodology. In some other situation, that project would be a perfect one for Scrum.
PS One thing I don't like with Agile evangelists is that Agile (Scrum in this case) is always right. It's either "what are you doing is not Scrum" or "you did not adapt Scrum to your needs", but its never the problem in Scrum.
No sig today.
Methodology books are like recipe book. Good chefs own many of them, and draw on the knowledge and ideas inside.
But buying and following a cookbook does not make you an expert chef.
I must agree. As a Project Manager my boss has sent me off to several of the "Agile" development workshops and I came to the same conclusion I do about most buzzwords - it's a solution looking for a problem. Too many PHB's walking around looking for a way to keep themselves busy.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain