Agile and scrum are some of the latest buzzwords around the software industry and their development methods employ more iterative and incremental development techniques than the traditional waterfall development - requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between cross-functional teams.
The development of SCRUM initially came from Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in the mid-90's but is used either formally or informally in many software companies today. While we have been using many of the techniques informally, we thought we would benefit from a full pilot project.
We have been using SCRUM methodology, in which a team works together on a series of sprints. Each sprint is a week-long development phase followed by a review meeting. During the sprint, pair programming is used and the pairs change for each sprint. Pair programming is a technique where two programmers work together at one work station; one types in code while the other reviews each line of code as it is typed.
While we have used many Agile development techniques at ModuleWorks for many years, this is the first time we have tried a formal methodology across a whole team. We will openly assess the results and decide whether it is appropriate for future projects.
Costin Calisov, the technical lead says, “Wow, I never saw such enthusiasm in people. When they got out from the condensed course they would have moved the mountains if someone had asked them to”.
If yo're a reader of our regular newsletters then you will have seen most of this article in newsletter 9. We're planning to publish a follow up.in newsletter 11 in April but we'll publish it first in the blog in the next couple of weeks - if you were looking for it in Newsletter 10, it missed the cut as we ran out of room..
See you next time.
The ModuleWorks Blogger.
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