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POHow to adapt agile to different companies? An MBA thesis
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copied!<p>My master's thesis is to look at how to apply agile. </p> <p>There is an awful lot of corporate selling of agile - lots of management consultants selling their brand as 'best'. </p> <p>I'm not interested whether <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_Programming" rel="nofollow noreferrer">XP</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Scrum</a>, <a href="http://www.agilekiwi.com/crystal_clear.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Crystal Clear</a>, <a href="http://www.agilemanagement.net/Articles/Papers/StretchingAgiletoFitCMMIL.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Agile-CMMI</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Six Sigma</a> or any other brand/variant is best. I'm interested in what real, active developers (i.e. you guys) actually apply as agile.</p> <p>What I've investigated is how to tailor agile to different organisational requirements.</p> <p>From research into how different organisations apply agile I've developed the following guidelines - a recipe for what agile variations should be applied in what situations:</p> <ul> <li>Larger and more distributed or more flexible teams need stricter coding and testing standards, small teams can (and should) use less.</li> <li>Process documentation should be minimal, real-time and current. </li> <li>Detailed statistical control indicators are an unnecessary overhead: early release of incomplete software is a better indication of progress.</li> <li>Ideally developers should be close to the customer with no specialised intermediate roles. Additional roles should only be used if customers are specialised in a way that stops developers from also being users.</li> <li>Iterations should be flexible unless it benefits coordination of releases with other departments or other processes.</li> <li>Developers should be able to easily and regularly communicate but meetings should be infrequent (monthly and weekly, rather than daily).</li> <li>Pair programming should only be used for training and investigational tasks.</li> <li>These guidelines are a starting point only: continuous improvement should be used to further tailor the agile variant to the exact circumstances.</li> </ul> <p>These factors change when applied in an organisation with existing traditional (i.e. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Design_Up_Front" rel="nofollow noreferrer">BDUF</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_development" rel="nofollow noreferrer">waterfall</a>) models, where agile teams must either coexist with or be adapted from teams using non-agile methods:</p> <ul> <li>Process documentation with sign off and structured steps will help other teams track the project.</li> <li>Statistical indicators (like velocity) can help reassure non-agile teams that the process is under control. </li> <li>Fixed iterations will help co-ordination across teams.</li> </ul> <p>These additional guidelines will help agile co-exist with traditional models, but they provide additional overhead and restrictions.</p> <p>What I want to know is what you - the people who write software, not agile consultants - think of this framework. </p> <p>What do you think is accurate? What do you think is wrong? What would you change? What have I missed?</p> <p>Most importantly: why? </p> <hr> <p>I've added a bounty to this to offer an extra incentive to answer what is a rather long question. The bounty will go to whoever gets the most votes from the SO community - I realise that there's no single right answer, but I'm interested in what's closest to the community's consensus.</p>

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