Posted by andy in : Agile,Business Value on November 22, 2004. There are no responses »ComputerWeekly.com have an interesting article (European banking giant adopts agile development methodology)
It’s full of mixed messages!
On the one hand it talks about Fred Tingey positive experience of using Extreme Programming (XP) at BNP Paribas.
And then, it switches tack with an apparent “Security Expert” taking the view that agile is far too risky:
…this type of development exposes users to unnecessary risks as it is difficult to build security into the software development lifecycle.
This is a strange thing to say as security is a feature (not a lifcycle issue) and delivering features is what XP is really good at. I have never had any problems adding security to an application that has been developed in an Agile way.
The wonderfully ironic twist is that Fred Tingey won the Risk Manager Of The Year award for using Agile (sadly not mentioned in the article)!
Oh well. The key part is that Fred Tingey is is winning awards for using Agile and that the banking community is starting to recognize the benefit of agile techniques. Well done Fred.
Posted by andy in : Agile on November 8, 2004. There are no responses »Henk de Bruin has sent me two photos of me and Duncan Pierce in action at the Agile Business Conference. Thanks Henk
Posted by andy in : Agile on November 5, 2004. There are no responses »The Guardian has an article on extreme programming and even mentions XPDay. Great.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1342328,00.html
Posted by andy in : Agile on November 4, 2004. There are no responses »I have just noticed an(other) article arguing that you must must be mad not to do waterfall development in the appropriately named website (http://db.riskwaters.com/public/showPage.html?page=195099
Steven Little claims IT projects must have the following process:
- Step One: What do I have to do? (write the business specifications)
- Step Two: How am I going to do it? (write the technical specifications)
- Step Three: Do it (actually start implementation)
The print version has a wonderfully ironic photo showing the tools of the trade as hammers chisels.
I wonder why people still feel that waterfall is such a great idea for managing project risks?
Waterfall was first described by Winston Royce in the famous paper “Managing the Development of Large Software Systems”. Many people, incorrectly view this paper as the paragon of single-pass waterfall. In reality, he recommended an approach somewhat different than what has evolved into today’s waterfall concept, with its strict sequence of requirements analysis (Step one), design (Step two), and development phases (Step three).
In a personal communication with his Son (Walker Royce), Craig Larman (http://www2.umassd.edu/SWPI/xp/articles/r6047.pdf) discovered:
He [Winston Royce] was always a proponent of iterative, incremental, evolutionary development. His paper described the waterfall as the simplest description, but that it would not work for all but the most straightforward projects. The rest of his paper describes [iterative practices] within the context of the 60s/70s government-contracting models (a serious set of constraints).
