Agile Development

While Agile Software Development has been mainstream for many years, there still needs to be clarity about deploying the Principles of Agile into effective practices in specific domains and contexts.

Here's a collection of hands-on experience in various domains, showing how to deploy agile development successfully.

Let's start with agility managing the project with the money the customer provides.

• Agile Project Management: Steering from the Edge
• JIRA Project Management Procedures ?- Processes and Procedures of managing an agile development project with JIRA.
• Applying Project Control Processes to Agile Development Projects
• Agile Transformation of Aerospace Business From Traditional Stage-Gate to Agile for Product and Service Delivery
• Integration of Program Performance Management with Agile Software Development ?- Starting with the Engineering Estimate, define deliverables, their production plan, deployment, any variance of effort and cost, and the corrective actions to keep the planned work on plan.
• Agilely Managing Projects in the Federal Environment ?- Applying the Immutable Principles and Process of Project Management in Traditional & Agile Domains to Increase the Probability of Project Success (PoPS).
• Agiley Managing Requirements ?- a simple guide to requirements management in an agile organization.
• Agile Project Management Methods , in?The Story of Managing Projects: A Global, Cross-Disciplinary Collection of Perspectives, Dr. E. G. Carayannis and Dr. Y. H. Kwak, editors, Greenwood Press / Quorum Books, 2002.
• Scrum Master Processes ?- 8 Ceremonies, sample business rhythm, and 41 Tasks of the Scrum Master.
• Estimating and Managing Agile Projects at DHS ?- Thomas J. Coonce and Glen Alleman, DHS Cost Analysis Stakeholder Working Group.
• Software for Our Minds ?- Patterns and Anti-Patterns for creating and maintaining a shared vision.
• Post-Normal Science and eXtreme Programming ?- How can we understand the impacts of eXtreme Programming and other Agile methods without scientific data?
• WSRI Agile Program Management Process ?- Applying agile principles, practices, and processes to the project, building the release plan for each program event in the Integrated Master Plan and deliverables for that review.
• Paradigm of Agile Project Management ?- when we say?Agile?in the absence of a Domain and Context, how can it have any meaning?
• Effective Use of Kanban in a Nutshell ?- Principles, Practices, and Processes that Increase the Probability of Project Success.
• Lightweight Processes - An Overview of Lightweight Development Processes and Selecting One For Your Projects ?- Lightweight processes are beginning to replace more formal methods.
• Agile Project Management and "Normative" Paradigms
• Agile Project Management Methods Meet Earned Value ?- Glen Alleman and Michael Henderson,?Agile Development?June 25-28, 2003.
• A Workshop for Product Owners, Scrum Master, and Team Members for Improving Team Performance ?- Scrum Masters and Product Owners are critical to the success of agile projects.
• Agile Program Management - Moving from Principles to Practice ?- Agile program management is the?glue?between IT strategy and delivery of business value.
• Agile Software Development for Government Software Intensive Systems of Systems (SiS) , - If we're looking to increase the probability of success for Software Intensive System of Systems, look to where that effort can produce the highest return for the investment, Boulder Agile Meetup, 27 July 2016.
• ??Increasing Probability of Success for Complex System of Systems by Integrating Systems Engineering, Agile Project Management with Program Performance Management ?- Managing Complex System of Systems Subject to FAR 34.2 and DFARS 234.2 by Applying Agile at Scale.
• Product & Process Development Kaizen for Software Development, Project, and Program Management , LPPDR, Denver Colorado, April 21-23, 2008.
• When is Light Right? , XP Denver, April 23rd, 2001.
• Making Agile Development Work in a Government Contracting Environment - Measuring Velocity with Earned Value ?- Glen Alleman, Michael Henderson, CH2M Hill, and Ray Seggelke, Envision Technology, Agile Development, June 25-28, Salt Lake City, Utah.
• Setting up the Agile Program for EVM Compliant Validation, using the Principles of Agile Systems Engineering , EVM World 2016.
• You Don't Need Agile to Avoid the Seven Deadly Sins of Project Management ?- Bad Project Management is Just That?Bad Project Management.
• Blending Agile Development Methods with CMMI?
• CMMI and Agile, Joining Principles with Practice to Produce a Single Integrated System , PMI Professional Development Day, Grapevine, TX, June 23, 2011.

One foundation of success for all software development projects is to produce a credible estimate of the cost and duration of the project. One of the myths of agile is that we don't care about duration because we'll continuously produce value from each iteration. That's fine if the project has no deadline for going live with its Features.

Here are some examples where that is nonsense.

• Every October, the Affordable Care Act insurance system has a go-live of the current regulatory process enabled by the software. Be there with those features.
• You can fly to Mars in a 3-week window every 18 months. If you're writing Command and Data Handling (C&DH) or Guidance Navigation and Control (GN&C) software - both using Scrum in our workplaces, you need to be on the launch pad at the right time, or you don't get paid.

So Estimates are needed. Credible estimates. Estimates that are risk-adjusted Here's how it's done in our domain.

• From Product Roadmap of Needed Capabilities to Release Plan, to Feature Breakdown Structure, to Credible Estimates , DHS Cost Analysis Stakeholder Working Group, Thomas Coonce, and Glen Alleman.
• Building a Risk-Adjusted Engineering Estimate and Executing the Risk-Adjusted Product Roadmap , the Risk-Adjusted Product Roadmap starts with Risk-Adjusted Engineering Estimates and the Resulting Rough Order of Magnitude Estimate.
• How Should We Estimate Agile Projects and Measure Progress to Plan , Thomas Coonce, and Glen Alleman, Naval Center for Cost Analysis, Software and IT Cost Analysis Solutions, August 22, 2017.
• Options-Based Agile Decision Processes - How to Apply "Real Options" Theory to the Development of ERP ?- Agile Universe, 2002, Chicago Il, August 4 - 7, 2002.
• Calculating Physical Percent Complete for the PMB Using an Agile Tool , EVM World 2017.
• Basis of Estimate (BOE) Training - Developing a Basis of Estimate is an Art and a Science
• Paired Comparison Analysis ?- in paired comparison experiments, the worth or merit of a unit is measured through comparisons against other units.

So when you hear about Agile Software Development or read the history of Agile in Jim Highsmith's new book or his great previous books , ALWAYS ask and answer:

• What domain and context are we developing the software in?
• What externalities are guiding this development? For example, in our domain, software development is guided by the Federal Acquisition Regulation 34.2 and the Defense version 234.2, as described by Agile At Scale For Software Intensive System of Systems (SISoS)

So define your Paradigm of Managing Agile Software Development Projects and the applicable paradigm of developing agile software before ever picking the process.