SCALLING AGILE METHODS:
Agile methods were developed for use by small programming teams who could work together in the same room and communicate informally. Agile methods have therefore been mostly used for the development of small and medium-sized systems. Of course, the need for faster delivery of software, which is more suited to customer needs, also applies to larger systems. Consequently, there has been a great deal of interest in scaling agile methods to cope with larger systems, developed by large organizations.
There are two perspectives on the scaling of agile methods:
1. A ‘scaling up’ perspective, which is concerned with using these methods for developing large software systems that cannot be developed by a small team.
2. A ‘scaling out’ perspective, which is concerned with how agile methods can be introduced across a large organization with many years of software development experience.
Agile methods have to be adapted to cope with large systems engineering. Leffingwell (2007) argues that it is essential to maintain the fundamentals of agile methods—flexible planning, frequent system releases, continuous integration, test driven development, and good team communications.
The critical adaptations that have to be introduced are as follows:
1. For large systems development, it is not possible to focus only on the code of the system. You need to do more up-front design and system documentation. The software architecture has to be designed and there has to be documentation produced to describe critical aspects of the system, such as database schemas, the work breakdown across teams, etc.
2. Cross-team communication mechanisms have to be designed and used. This should involve regular phone and video conferences between team members and frequent, short electronic meetings where teams update each other on progress. A range of communication channels such as e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking systems should be provided to facilitate communications.
3. Continuous integration, where the whole system is built every time any developer checks in a change, is practically impossible when several separate programs have to be integrated to create the system. However, it is essential to maintain frequent system builds and regular releases of the system. This may mean that new configuration management tools that support multi-team software development have to be introduced.
Small software companies that develop software products have been amongst the most enthusiastic adopters of agile methods. These companies are not constrained by organizational bureaucracies or process standards and they can change quickly to adopt new ideas.
