Crystal Clear Methodology Crystal Clear is a methodology that summarises 10 years of research into successful software teams. Which things really matter? Which things most influence the project outcome?… Read More
Comparison to Traditional Development In my on-going quest to answer the question “What is agile development?”, here is a point-by-point comparison with traditional development.… Read More
Agile Charts I’m sick of Gantt charts. They’re hard to maintain and they don’t tell me what I want to know. I want the big picture: Are we on time? Are we on budget? Gantt charts overshadow the big picture with details. Here’s a clearer, simpler chart:… Read More
Gurus on Contracts Martin Fowler is well-known industry guru, respected by virtually everybody (including me). He suggests you can’t use agile processes on projects with fixed price and scope. Alistair Cockburn — who is a well-known industry guru, respected by virtually everybody (including me) — says you can. To resolve this apparent conflict, we need to understand two… Read More
Beware the Lowest Price Awarding contracts to the lowest bidder is optimistic at best, dangerous at worst. So why do we keep doing it? There are many reasons. To pick just one: we believe it works in “real” engineering – making bridges, roads and buildings. But it doesn’t. Although it is widely used in engineering; it’s not widely successful!… Read More
Fixed Price Contracts Can you use agile processes with traditional fixed price contracts, contracts where both scope and price are specified up front? Yes, you can use agile processes on fixed price projects. For instance, Crystal Clear was developed and tested on fixed price projects:… Read More
The Trust Barrier David Anderson presents three facets of agility: The “toolbox” of iterative development techniques The belief that people are more significant than process Trust David points out that trust underlies the greater efficiency of agile approaches. Lean Software Development also emphasises trust. It is easy to fall into the trap of seeing trust as a prerequisite… Read More
One-Page Guide to Agility Agile development can look a bit crazy, at first. I’m writing this guide to explain the foundations of agility, outline its benefits, and show why it’s not so crazy after all.… Read More
Building on People’s Strengths Alistair Cockburn points out that traditional processes are based on an assumption that people will successfully accomplish things that they normally struggle with. In particular, it is assumed that people will change their habits to follow detailed new instructions. Unfortunately, humans aren’t very good at that! Old habits die hard and, unlike the computers we… Read More
Why Agility Works Why do agile methodologies work? More importantly, why do they work better than traditional methodologies? I’ll single out two reasons. (Martin Fowler’s excellent article provides many more.) Agile methodologies work because: They recognise, and emphasise, creativity They are based on real-world experience… Read More