Code Camp: Easing into Agile

Easing Into Agile

Speaker: Ted Young (a Tech Lead from from Guidewire BillingCenter)

A talk about how one development group gradually became more Agile by adopting various Agile/XP/Scrum practices.

Started by covering some of the basics of what Agile software development is about:

Iterations, teamwork and adaptability

Agile type practices include:

• Continuous Integration (e.g. CruiseControl)
• Wikis (to encourage team contributions, review and discussions)
• Working software over excessive documentation
• People over processes
• Responding to change over following a plan (‘Planning’ is usful; ‘The Plan’ less so)
• Pair programming

Some of the approaches that were utilised at Guidewire included:

• Iterations of 2 weeks, aligned with builds
• Daily Standups (What did I do yesterday, plan to do today, issues/lessons etc)
• Extensive use of Story Cards
  • Represent Testable Feature Pieces
  • Focused Development that can be handed off directly to QA

Lessons:

• Found 1 week iterations to be too much overhead
• Physical proximity and core hours required for team work
• Flexibility of process and tools essential
• Agile only really useful for teams of 4-10 (smaller, too much overhead; larger, need to break teams down)

Overall: A useful talk on how Agile was successfully used on one team.

Links

• Presentation slides (TBC)
• Presenter’s blog
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development
• Alistair Cockburn
• Agile Software Development Book