Agile Acceptance

by Matt Wickey

By now, it’s pretty much confirmed that, in the world of software development, Agile processes are here to stay. At their best these process offer shorter development times, higher quality, and a generally happier bunch of programmers. In fact, you cannot review industry want ads without seeing the word “Agile” sprinkled liberally all over the place. Yup, Agile is here to stay.

Why, then, do we not find all corporate IT departments converting to cube-less, team-centered Scrum factories at breakneck speed? For the record I have actually visited such a place and, I must say, it is pretty cool. But they had a unique set of circumstances (which I’ll discuss in a bit) that made the global adoption of Agile more attainable.

But, to the original question: with all its highly touted success, why isn’t conversion to Agile an easier sell?

One reason: MANAGEMENT!
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What is Failure Demand?

by Bill Heitzeg

All companies that use or support software of any kind will, at times, see that software fails. The demand on your company’s resources to handle this failure is sometimes called failure demand.

For example, when a customer has a problem using your software and they call you to solve it, that’s failure demand. If it turns out that the phone call results in your support person discovering your software has a bug, the time to discover that bug, by both you and, if you’re being fair, your customer, is failure demand.

When your developers have to stop everything they are doing to fix the bug, that’s failure demand. And of course the time to redeploy the patch and the communications associated with this patch are all failure demand. Rigorously looking for, exposing, discussing, tracking and eliminating failure demand can have an extremely positive effect on any IT organization.

Mary Poppendieck writes extensively about this in her articles and books, giving excellent guidance to organizations that are looking to attack this problem. In her latest book, Leading Lean Software Development, Mary describes failure demand as waste: “Waste is anything that depletes resources of time, effort, space, or money without adding customer value.”

To learn more, pick up one of the Mary’s books, spend some time at Poppendieck.com or find out about our upcoming “Mary Poppendieck comes to Ann Arbor” event.

In this issue:

“Industry Hiring Picks Up—Are You Ready?”
by John W. Stout

“Cloud Computing—Speeding Up Software Adoption”
by Bill Heitzeg

“Tech Talent Expands”

“Mobile Apps: Moving Business”

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What is this SCRUM I keep hearing about?

by Peg Bogema

Let’s start here. The word SCRUM comes from Rugby—a crazy game that to the uninitiated looks like soccer with tackling. In a SCRUM, some of the players from both teams are locked in what looks kind of like a football huddle. The ball goes into play right in the middle and the players try to kick it to their teammates. If you think of a huddle, you probably have the right visual image. But it’s considerably less gentle, since the players are fighting for the ball.

In software development, SCRUM is an agile development method.

The Wikipedia definition: Agile software development refers to a group of software development methodologies based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams.

So how does the SCRUM method work?

There are three main groups of players in this method: the Product Owner, the Scrum Master and the Scrum Team. (more…)

“3 Lessons Microsoft Taught Us About Branding”
by David Brier

“Improving Java Software Builds with Maven – Part 2″
by Robert Shanahan

“Software Development Study Group”

“Bill Heitzeg Joins Stout Systems to Provide Business Development and Technical Services”

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Download Most Significant Bits - Winter 2010

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