Official Transitioner

The emphasis of my first day at PDC was Agile Development Methodologies & Tools. Shockingly, there was a huge emphasis on running the complete process of whatever methodology (be it Scrum, Extreme Programming, etc.)

As naive as it may sound, it had never occurred to me to sit down, read and memorize a book on agile, and regurgitate everything it said.  I’ve always viewed that as much more of a Waterfall style of learning, and figured innovative learning and application goes along with innovative techniques.  Maybe some parts of Agile work for you, and maybe others don’t.  On the other, something I did needed pointed out was that Agile technical practices should always be implemented with Agile planning processes. Just using the planning process without bothering to ensure your work is gotten done in an efficient manner won’t actually boost your productivity or developers being personally vested in the process.

Agile tools I like:

• Stand-Up Scrum meetings: Very little makes it more clear that you haven’t done work than having nothing concrete to say during Scrum. Getting problems out fast is remarkably helpful.
• User story focus: This helps make sure that the user stays at the forefront of all of the development work.  It reminds a developer that the user really what is at stake when developing a feature.
• Rapid Iteration: This really is the core principle of Agile, and I can’t argue with it. Being able to quickly put up a prototype to work from and develop from ensure that you will have some product, and also makes everything move faster.  Personally, working on something for a short period of time seems far more compelling than “for the next six months I will…”

Now, I’ll be looking more into the Extreme Programming side…