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New Post 10/18/2008 2:57 AM
User is offline Craig Brown
560 posts
www.betterprojects.net
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when to (not) use agile 

Wikipedia has an entry on this topic.

What do ou think?

Wikipedia says

Barry Boehm and Richard Turner suggest that risk analysis be used to choose between adaptive ("agile") and predictive ("plan-driven") methods.[14] The authors suggest that each side of the continuum has its own home ground as follows:

Agile home ground:

  • Low criticality
  • Senior developers
  • Requirements change very often
  • Small number of developers
  • Culture that thrives on chaos

Plan-driven home ground:

  • High criticality
  • Junior developers
  • Requirements don't change too often
  • Large number of developers
  • Culture that demands order
 
New Post 10/19/2008 11:33 PM
User is offline Chris Adams
323 posts
5th Level Poster






Re: when to (not) use agile 

 craigwbrown wrote

Wikipedia has an entry on this topic.

What do ou think?

Wikipedia says

Barry Boehm and Richard Turner suggest that risk analysis be used to choose between adaptive ("agile") and predictive ("plan-driven") methods.[14] The authors suggest that each side of the continuum has its own home ground as follows:

Agile home ground:

  • Low criticality
  • Senior developers
  • Requirements change very often
  • Small number of developers
  • Culture that thrives on chaos

Plan-driven home ground:

  • High criticality
  • Junior developers
  • Requirements don't change too often
  • Large number of developers
  • Culture that demands order

Craig,

I tend to agree. While the lists above may be an oversimplification, I think Agile methods have there place as well as more traditional prescriptive approaches.  Some of the key decision makers are listed in the wikipedia article.  I think the top factors are (1) Developers' experience level, and (2) Speed and degree to which requirements change (this can be managed and mitigated to a degree).

 


Chris Adams
Core Member – ModernAnalyst.com
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New Post 12/24/2008 10:53 AM
User is offline Sara Criss
9 posts
10th Level Poster


Re: when to (not) use agile 

i still not get when to (not) use agile .....can u guys plz lil bit more descriptive

 
New Post 12/25/2008 11:35 PM
User is offline Craig Brown
560 posts
www.betterprojects.net
4th Level Poster




Re: when to (not) use agile 
Modified By Craig Brown  on 12/26/2008 2:35:58 AM)

Sara

If we presume an Agile approach is usually the most suitable for your environment you'd be looking for triggers to apply more planning and discipline into the process.

The triggers that Boehma and Turner talk about are environmental and less about the application you are going to tackle and more about the business, market or problem you are tackling.

One key trigger is requirements stability.  If you are going to have a stable set of requirements throughout the life of the project, it makes sense to think through the problem a bit before your dive in.  You'll get more scalability from your software (and thus longer term returns on your investment) than if you jump into development without a strategic view of the problem you are tackling. The same principles can be applied to system architecture.

Specificaly Boehm and Turner refer us to Boehm's "Spiral model" of software development - which is all about identifying risks to the project and building your milestone deliverables to best mitigate these risks.  THey aren't saying "forget agile" but are saying adopt a risk management perspective when modelling your development process.

Hope this is useful.

 

 
New Post 12/30/2008 5:42 AM
User is offline Tony Markos
493 posts
5th Level Poster


Re: when to (not) use agile 
Hi: To me it sounds like agile is being defined as "a license to hack". Isn't agile in essence creating minimual documentation - but still producing essential documentation? Isn't such the goal of EVERY project? Granted, the required level of documentation may vary for example for junior developers vs senior level developers, but, for the given environment, I thought the goal is still minimal - but essential - documentation. Tony
 
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