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| Book: | The Art of Agile Development | |
| Subject: | Great Reference for Agile Teams | |
| Date: | 2009-05-20 08:18:49 | |
| From: | Mark Ridlehuber | |
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Rating:
I recently read The Art of Agile Development as part of an Agile book discussion group. I would recommend it to anyone active in Agile software development or anyone simply thinking about adopting XP with Scrum. What were the biggest positive surprises found in reading the book? Team member role ratios - The authors suggest as a rule of thumb to start with 2 on-site customers (including the product manager) for every 3 programers. He makes a very good point that if your programmers are your constraint, then it is very important to not bottle neck their efforts with wait time on "how should the software work" questions. There are also considerations of "waste" introduced by having to collect this information up front in documentation rather than relying on a back and forth discussion as needed. Risk Management - The authors have pulled together the analysis of project release data from various sources and provide some ways to intellegently update initial release plan estimates to arrive at a risk adjusted release date. Most Agile references I am familiar with resist making this type of commitment and instead focus on changing the company culture to not require the commitment until you have enough data on the team velocity. While I believe the latter is MUCH more desireable, the authors at least recognize that this is not possible in some corporate cultures. From the Agile newbie to the seasoned consultant, The Art of Agile Development offers plenty of fresh examples along with the underlying principles to help the reader master the art of successful software development. |
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