Agile Development at AccessRocks.com
Drives, initiatives, thrusts, programs and whatever else you want to call the various
fads to which software development is disproportionately subjected come and go with
regularity, not necessarily with much justification. I stopped paying much attention
some years ago.
I mention this one because I discovered in March 2011 that I am a dyed-in-the-wool
Agile Developer, and have been for most of my professional life. I won't ordinarily
bend down to pick up a buzzword (or buzzphrase) for the sake of sticking it on a
resume, but after seeing the phrase yet again I looked it up on Wikipedia (Wikipedia article)and found this:
The Agile Manifesto
(
the Agile Manifesto site)
- Focus on individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Produce working software over comprehensive documentation
- Pursue customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Concentrate on responding to change over following a plan
Hmmmm. Software as if people and results mattered more than process. The article goes on
to outline these:
Twelve Principles Underlying the Agile Manifesto
- Customer satisfaction by rapid delivery of useful software
- Welcome changing requirements, even late in development
- Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)
- Working software is the principal measure of progress
- Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace
- Close, daily co-operation between business people and developers
- Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location)
- Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted
- Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
- Simplicity
- Self-organizing teams
- Regular adaptation to changing circumstances
No one approach is ever The Answer to All Situations. However, this one will do for most
development that any small to medium business will ever need to do. And in truth even
department-level development within very large organizations would probably come out better
by far under this approach. And of course, by the time you get up past medium business,
you had better be bringing in people to that pesky comprehensive documentation.
Much as I subscribe to the Agile Manifesto, this cartoon
brilliantly captures what can go very wrong if you allow agile to become a synonym for ad hoc.
