Scaling agile
- 1. Scaling agile methods Software Engineering 10
- 2. Agile methods have proved to be successful for small and medium sized projects that can be developed by a small co-located team.
- 3. It is sometimes argued that the success of these methods comes because of improved communications which is possible when everyone is working together.
- 4. For large systems, different parts of the system may be developed by different teams. They may not all be working in the same place or for the same company.
- 5. Scaling up agile methods involves changing these to cope with larger, longer projects where there are multiple development teams, perhaps working in different locations.
- 6. Agile fundamentals Flexible planning, frequent system releases, continuous integration, test-driven development and good team communications.
- 7. The informality of agile development is incompatible with the legal approach to contract definition that is commonly used in large companies.
- 8. Agile methods are most appropriate for new software development rather than software maintenance. Yet the majority of software costs in large companies come from maintaining their existing software systems.
- 9. Agile methods are designed for small co-located teams yet much software development now involves worldwide distributed teams.
- 10. Most software contracts for custom systems are based around a specification, which sets out what has to be implemented by the system developer for the system customer.
- 11. It is not therefore possible to interleave specification and development as recommended in agile development.
- 12. A contract that pays for developer time rather than functionality is seen as a high risk by many legal departments because what has to be delivered cannot be guaranteed.
- 13. Are systems that are developed using an agile approach maintainable, given the emphasis in the development process of minimizing formal documentation?
- 14. Can agile methods be used effectively for evolving a system in response to customer change requests?
- 15. If agile methods are to be successful, they have to support maintenance as well as original development.
- 16. Agile development relies on the development team knowing and understanding what has to be done.
- 17. For long-lifetime systems, this is a real problem as the original developers will not always work on the system.
- 18. Scaling agile requires a mix of agile and plan-based development.
- 19. Is it important to have a very detailed specification and design before moving to implementation? If so, you probably need to use a plan-driven approach.
- 20. Are customer representatives available and willing to work closely with the development team?
- 21. How large is the system that is being developed? Agile methods minimise documentation but documentation may be essential for distributed teams.
- 22. Agile and plan-based factors Chapter 3 Agile Software 2230/10/2014
- 23. Agile methods are most effective a relatively small co-located team who can communicate informally.
- 24. Systems that require a lot of analysis before implementation need a fairly detailed design to carry out this analysis.
- 25. Long-lifetime systems require documentation to communicate the intentions of the system developers to the support team.
- 26. If a system is regulated you will probably be required to produce detailed documentation as part of the system safety case.
- 27. It is sometimes argued that agile methods require higher skill levels than plan-based approaches in which programmers simply translate a detailed design into code.
- 28. Design documents may be required if the team is distributed.
- 29. IDE support for collaborative work is essential for distributed teams.
- 30. Can the organisation adapt to different kinds of development contract or does the contracts department insist on standardisation?
- 31. Does the culture support individual initiative which is an inherent part of agile development?
- 32. Do customers want incremental delivery and involvement in the process?