Presentation Transcript
Agile Meets Waterfall:Bringing Teams and Projects Together :Agile Meets Waterfall:Bringing Teams and Projects Together Jim Flanagan
ITMGMT 500
Spring 2009
Introduction :Introduction What is Waterfall?
What is Agile?
Comparing Agile to Waterfall
Merging Teams
Merging Projects
The Bottom Line
Q & A
What is Waterfall? :What is Waterfall? Sequential development process
Discrete steps
Requirements
Design
Implementation
Test
Long running, typically months but may span years
Well documented design
Emphasis on knowing everything upfront
Can be rigid and inflexible
Theme: Measure twice, cut once
Slide 4:Sample Waterfall Project
What is Agile? :What is Agile? Short timeframe, iterative development cycles (Sprint)
Daily communication (Scrum)
Emphasis on small, cross functional teams
Face-to-face rather than written documentation
"Releasable" code after every Sprint
Can be dogmatic
Theme: Iterative refinement
Slide 6:Sample Agile Project
Comparing Agile to Waterfall :Comparing Agile to Waterfall Strengths of Waterfall
Communication with outside groups
Strategic planning
Lot's of documentation
Strengths of Agile
Tight control over schedule and milestones
Focus on customer features
Integrated development and testing
Observation
Agile is good for implementing features
Waterfall is good for implementing product
Bringing the Team Together :Bringing the Team Together The Challenge
Merge 2 teams
Remote development team uses Agile
Local development team uses Waterfall
Mutual despise
The Observation
Most seasoned developers naturally use Agile!Â
The Plan
Ditch the ideology...focus on the way people work
Be flexible
Bringing the Project Together :Bringing the Project Together The Challenge
Lack of strategic product plan
Lack of coherent test plan
Lack of release process
Lack of documentation
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The Observation
A Waterfall project has all of these!
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The Plan
Use Waterfall to plan, document, and release the product
Use Agile to develop the software
Slide 10:Merged Agile/Waterfall Project
The Bottom Line :The Bottom Line Is it working?
Yes!
Projects are shipping on schedule
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Is it perfect?
No...but it works better than either process before!
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Are people happy?
Yes!
Developers can focus on feature development
Product Management can plan a release
QA has time to test
Senior Management has accurate status
My team is focused and engaged
Q&A :Q&A