A Bit More Background

To illustrate, let me tell a bit more about the circumstances of the project mentioned above.

• This was to be a replacement system. All the existing functionality had to be preserved in the first release. There was to be innovation to enable easier extensibility, but this was mostly “under the covers”. (Later releases would add new functionality.)
• There were to be some changes to the user interface, but these were being developed by a completely separate team, using traditional techniques of mock-ups, focus groups etc. The development team was to implement this predetermined user interface with perhaps only minor adjustments.
• There were many non-negotiable and well documented business rules to be implemented. High product quality was essential.
• The client wanted to see reduced costs of maintenance and enhancement going forward.
• The client required a very firm estimate for this pre-specified functionality.

So this still left lots of room for agility. We would be prototyping iteratively all the time and we would have co-located subject matter experts to help us validate and refine important details. And we would be developing with small incremental sub-releases, with continuous integration – we would be applying all of the principles and techniques of Agile that would work within their project realities. And we would ignore those aspects of Agile that would lead to failure.

We are still learning. Every now and then, somebody publishes a new set of theories or a new set of techniques which attract us. Sometimes these new things become wildly popular. But the problem is that some people take a “silver bullet” attitude – and believe the latest thing to be a prescription for all our challenges and dismiss everything else we’ve ever learned.

So our challenge is to take the best of what’s new, but keep our brains engaged with the big picture.

Highlights of Scrum for Me - Techniques

User Stories

To me, one of the most powerful contributions of Agile and Scrum to our profession is the focus on the User Story (along with the Use Case). The simple statement, “As a ___ I want to ___ so that ___” gives us an intuitive yet fairly precise view of the business capability that is needed and its justification. It’s easy and it’s natural.

Limitations of Scrum

The Scrum Guide makes it very clear that Scrum is a process framework to manage product development, but it is not a process or technique for buildingproducts. The comments below elaborate on some outside-of-Scrum aspects that can be necessary for a successful system delivery and implementation, with some references to where these are addressed in Macroscope.

Reality Checks

Not Everybody Fits the Scrum Profile

The vision of the Scrum Developer is of a flexible, highly collaborative person who is keenly interested in seeing all aspects of the product. He/she is multi-disciplinary and interested in expanding their knowledge of new disciplines.