Agile Attitudes- Agile Development Conference Report

Sat Jul 10 13:34:10 EDT 2004

Agile Attitudes
Volume 1, Issue 6                                      July 9, 2004
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Nancy V. and Ron Morsicato will be speaking at the XP Agile Universe
Conference, and Embedded Systems Conference. See below for details.

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New England Agile Bazaar next meeting at Pizzeria Uno, 287 Washington 
Place, Newton, MA. Cost: $10.00 at the door covers pizza, refreshments.
Diana Larsen will be speaking on Self Organizing Teams. More info at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AgileBazaar/

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               Agile Development Conference Report
                   by Nancy Van Schooenderwoert

  The second Agile Development Conference happened last month in Salt 
Lake City, and I'd like to share with you some of the interesting 
ideas from workshops and conversations. I was there to present my 
ideas on agile testing techniques for embedded software, and I met 
another presenter, Bill Greene, from Intel who leads a team doing 
highly specialized firmware development for their Itanium processor 
family. His team codes entirely in assembler, and uses proprietary 
tools to simulate the processor's behavior.

  One theme that Bill mentioned in his talk was something I found 
underlying the experience of other agile coaches and team leaders I
met there. That's the notion that people will fight against change
unless they are allowed to have a real hand in it. For instance,
Bill suggested that his team members move to a common XP work area.
They'd never hear of it; they liked their individual cubicles and
weren't about to give them up for something they were unsure of.

  So Bill said how about if we just take down the upper portion of 
the partitions separating the cubes, and try that a couple weeks. Then 
if it's not better, he'd agree to putting everything back. Once they 
were given an "undo button" in this way, they agreed to give it a try. 
They never went back, and that was true for other changes Bill urged 
later on, so long as he let them have control over the changes.

  Another interesting experience report came from Paul Hodgetts, an 
agile coach based in southern California. He compared his experiences 
with clients who moved quickly to agile practices with those who 
adopted the new practices gradually. The case studies he presented 
showed that stronger teams resulted when the team members adopted 
agile practices on a timeframe comfortable to them, using metrics 
and retrospectives.

  It's odd how obvious - almost trite - the above sentence seems! 
Why would anyone expect a process change to work well if it was 
adopted faster than the team could handle? But there are plenty of 
instances where companies decide to move their developers to agile 
methods instantly. If it'll boost ROI, then sooner is better - right? 
Not if it is going to create turmoil and resentment in the team.

  Members of the Silicon Valley Patterns Group were out in force. I 
must have met a couple dozen! They meet every week and discuss 
current topics in software patterns, with a strong side interest in 
Extreme Programming. I talked with Russ Rufer who founded it and 
asked him what gave him the idea for this. He said he's originally 
from the Chicago area and they have a patterns study group. But living 
in California, he couldn't attend. So he started one and it's thriving. 
Who says software types are anti-social;-) Their website is 
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SiliconValleyPatternsGroup

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     software. The list signup info is at
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                         Public Appearances
Ron Morsicato and Nancy V. will speak at XP/Agile Universe Conference
     in Calgary, Alberta, Canada; August 15 - 18, 2004
     Agile Methods for Safety-Critical Software Development. See
     http://www.agileuniverse.com/schedule/index

Nancy Van Schooenderwoert will present on "Embedded Extreme Programming
     Experience Report and Clinic" at the Embedded Systems Conference 
     in Boston, September 13 - 16, 2004
     See http://www.esconline.com/boston/

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