Videos on Scrum and Agile Project Management
The Mikado Method is a simple straight forward methodology for large scale refactoring. We’ve all been there; tasked with a change, which as optimistic developers we say won’t take us long, weeks later we’re still fighting the system. Enter the Mikado Method, a way to peel the layers of complexity away from any system. Systematically attack refactoring, in the knowledge that every change you make will be for the better of the system, rather than hoping it will be.
Runners find that they can go faster with a lower perceived effort when they exercise in a pack. The same thing happens when our software teams gel, and when our management teams decide to work together for mutual benefit. We are, by nature, social beings—but culture teaches us to hold back and avoid deep connection.
How do agile projects accurately forecast their budget when they are typically just a bunch of hippies coding without requirements or documentation? Waterfall projects are obviously much better at budgeting with all of the traditional up front design and planning, right? Anyone who has been on a waterfall project can see that this is a complete fallacy.
Learn how to achieve multiple team collaboration in large scale software development projects. Self-organization is a key concept for all Lean-Agile methods. However, as projects expand across the enterprise and, more specifically, cut across multiple teams, teams clearly can’t just organize in any way they want to. A blend of top-down direction with bottom-up self organization is needed. Lean provides the insights necessary for teams to self-organize within the context of the value stream within which the teams work. A top-down perspective, created by driving from business value, can provide insights on how teams must organize and work together.
We would like solutions delivered fast without compromising quality, user experience, implicit requirements and non-functional aspects such as scalability and performance. This would have been easier, if we had all the time in the universe. Doing this in a sustainable manner becomes a huge challenge for teams as there are multiple competing forces at play and because software development is very complex.
When you explain the iterative/incremental nature of Agile, most people coming from a waterfall lifecycle say “What? No up-front planning at all?” Some Agile coaches would glibly say yes, but the truth is more complex. Sprint Zero is an Agile term for a time-boxed amount of up-front planning. During Sprint Zero, you identify value stories, get a decent backlog of user stories and you do some architectural proof-of-concepts. The trick is to balance between insufficient planning and analysis paralysis.
The nice metaphor of technical debt introduced some 18 years ago by Ward Cunningham has slowly taken roots in our collective conceptual toolbox, as a nice way to express some of the pains that software projects suffer from. Most software developers who have had some experience with significant, long-lived projects can feel it, sometimes point to it, but more than often can’t do much about it.
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