Agility@Scale: Strategies for Scaling Agile Software Development

with Tags: adoption

Large-Scale Agile Transformation and Adoption: Lessons Learned

ScottAmbler Tags: scale agile adoption 5,153 Visits

At Agile 2009 in August Sue McKinney, VP of Development Transformation with IBM Software Group, was interviewed by DZone's Nitin Bharti about IBM's experiences adopting agile techniques. There are over 25,000 developers within IBM Software Group alone. Follow the link to the interview to view it online (there is also a text transcript posted there. There's some great insights into the realities of scaling agile in large teams, in distributed agile development, and in particular how to transform a large organization's development staff.

The 5Ps of IT

ScottAmbler Tags: spi agileadopt adoption 5,531 Visits

Just like there are 5Ps of marketing, there are also “5 Ps” of IT:

People. People and the way they work together have a greater effect on the outcomes of a project than the processes they’re following or the products (tools and technologies) that they’re using. People issues include having visible executive sponsorship, building an environment of trust, empowering staff, focusing on leadership as well as management, recognizing that the primary gating factor when improving processes is people’s ability to absorb change, and promoting a cross-discipline strategy at both the team and individual levels.
Principles/philosophies. We’ve found both internally within IBM as well as with many of our customers that there is a need to define a common set of principles to provide a consistent foundation to enable effective teamwork and continuous process improvement. These principles help to guide people’s decisions when their processes and practices don’t directly address the situation which they find themselves in.
Practices/patterns. A practice is a self-contained, deployable component of a process. You might find the IBM Practices interesting.
Products. This includes the technologies – such as databases, application servers, networks, and client platforms – and tools such as integrated development environments, testing tools, and project planning tools used to create solutions for stakeholders.
Processes. The previous 4Ps do not exist in a vacuum, we need some sort of glue to help piece all of this together. Minimally this glue is a lifecycle although more often than not it is a full process or method.

My experience is that to be successful at software process improvement (SPI) across your entire IT department that you must address these 5Ps. How you address each issue, and to what extent, will vary based on your situation.

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