LOGIN | REGISTER NOW | SUBSCRIBE
 

Governance a key to successful agile adoption


By David Rubinstein
Email    print   
December 2, 2009 —  Forty-four percent of software development projects use some kind of agile techniques, according to Scott Ambler, IBM’s practice leader for agile development. That’s occurring in organizations where development is distributed, in regulatory environments, and in places using CMMI to measure the effectiveness of their development processes.

But as these organizations scale, Ambler said, they’re finding that the mainstream rhetoric of agile development doesn’t hold.

To address this problem, IBM is publishing a white paper called The Agile Scaling Model (ASM). One of its goals is to get organizations “out of the scrum rhetoric and to look at the whole life cycle, from pre-project, to get a full handle on the complexity of agile software delivery.”

The lowest rung of the ASM is what Ambler called “core agile,” where the focus is on software construction. It is value-driven and delivers working software with every iteration.

Beyond that is “disciplined agile,” which expands on the Scrum concept of a value-driven life cycle. Software is delivered in a collaborative and self-organized manner, using an appropriate governance policy.

It is important that agile teams organize and govern themselves, conforming to an enterprise’s architecture and leveraging it in their projects, Ambler said. “This is an adoption challenge” for agile, he expounded. Governance efforts that are not designed for agile work are dysfunctional and often hamper or burden project teams. “It’s about enablement, not command and control,” he said.

Many organizations are using a mix of agile and more formal, heavy processes, and governance must be done in different ways, he said. “You get different artifacts and metrics at different points in time, and a single governance policy for all will hurt each of the teams.”

The third rung of the ASM is the “risk-value life cycle,” where risk is explicitly defined and mitigated up front. It is here where stakeholders define the project’s scope and what they mean by value, and where the architecture is proven out by building a skeleton of the system, reducing technical risk, Ambler said. According to a November blog post, “Disciplined Agile Delivery,” these steps also help with transitioning to agile, allowing traditional funding models to use these milestones before moving to the finer-grained iteration-based funding that agile allows.

Finally, the top level of ASM is “agility at scale.” Ambler said there are eight complexity factors to agile development: geographical distribution, team size, compliance requirements, domain complexity, organization distribution, technical complexity, organizational complexity and enterprise discipline.

Organizations “will work differently depending upon where they are in the spectrum” of agile development, Ambler said. “Organizations have to recognize that one process doesn’t fit all.”

He advocated the adoption of lean manufacturing principles by software development organizations, because he said they provide guidance for scaling agile efforts.

For more of Ambler’s thoughts and ideas on agile, read his “Agile Mythbusters.”




Related Search Term(s): agile


Share this link: http://sdt.bz/33962
 
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Jama Contour 3.4 brings shared vision to align development activities with business priorities
New version of Jama’s Web application makes managing complex projects easier
Jama Software integrates Contour with Rally's leading agile lifecycle management platform
Integration aligns product vision and customer needs to daily development activities to empower Agile success an organization
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists
Digg!  Digg
Reddit  Reddit
Slashdot  Slashdot
Share on facebook  Facebook
Share on Twitter  Twitter


Add comment


Name*
Email*  
Country     


  • Comment
Loading




close
NEXT ARTICLE
Finding the right tool for the agile job
Experts emphasize that tools should bolster the agile process above all else Read More...
 
 
 
 
News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>


   

 
 

Download Current Issue
FEBRUARY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?


 
blogs tab
Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
02/07/2012 11:57 AM EST

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
02/04/2012 01:57 PM EST

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
02/03/2012 12:17 PM EST

Facebook claims hacker cred
Facebook's SEC S-1 filing form includes a short essay on the Hacker Way by Mark Zuckerberg himself.
02/02/2012 08:26 AM EST

Ryan Dahl steps down
Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, steps back from his position as gatekeeper for the project.
02/01/2012 04:58 PM EST

Bloomberg opens its API
Bloomberg's APIs could lead to a future standard for accessing market data.
02/01/2012 04:41 PM EST

 
Events calendar tab
Cloud Connect
2/13/2012 to 2/16/2012
Santa Clara
TechWeb

SPTechCon: The SharePoint Technology Conf.
2/26/2012 to 2/29/2012
San Francisco
BZ Media

RSA Conf.
2/27/2012 to 3/2/2012
San Francisco
RSA

IBM Pulse Conf.
3/4/2012 to 3/7/2012
Las Vegas
IBM Tivoli

Game Developer Conf.
3/5/2012 to 3/9/2012
San Francisco
TechWeb