- English
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Ivan Jacobson, author of the original work on Use Cases said in the Software Education SDC conference in Melbourne, Australia that the Agile development needs to “Get Smart”.
He stated that the information technology industry is very fashion conscious, having a tendency to latch onto silver bullets, and listed the following examples:
- Fifteen years ago it was all about OO
- Ten years ago it was about components, UML, Unified Process
- Five years ago it was about RUP and CMMi
- Two years ago it was about XP
- Today it is about Scrum
All have good elements – but none is what we need, what we need to do is to Work Smarter. He says “Being Smart is an evolution of being Agile”:
- Agile means being flexible and adaptable
- Agile provides simple/lightweight starting points
- Being Smart is knowing when to go beyond agile
- Knowing when to follow the rules and when to break them
- Knowing when to be consistent and when to change
- Knowing when to grow and when to shrink
Smart is Agile++
- Unsmart with People – viewing processes and tools as more important than people
- Smart with People – recognizing and understanding that software is built by people, not with processes and tools!
- Unsmart with Projects – Trying to follow a waterfall approach
- Smart with Projects – Build a “skinny system” to demonstrate that you have eliminated all the critical risks, then add more capabilities on top of that skinny system as needed.
- Unsmart with Process – continuously latching on to the latest fad, and trying to change everything you do in response to the newest rule book
- Smart with Process – Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater:
1. Start with your existing way of working
2. Find the pain points
3. Change one practice at a time
The key element to becoming Smart is to focus on the people, as Jacobson says, and “it all comes down to you”.
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