{"id":10620,"date":"2012-07-23T09:57:46","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T15:57:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/?p=10620"},"modified":"2021-03-11T13:08:33","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T18:08:33","slug":"agile-software-development-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/agile-software-development-part-1\/10620\/","title":{"rendered":"[Guest Post] An Outsiders View of Agile Software Development: Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"a296a24fa2fc69ef5487857f02f111e8\" data-index=\"9\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Single Post readerboard -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:728px;height:90px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8207522353004717\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1144967431\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>We&#8217;re pleased to welcome Joe Woods as a guest post today who will share with us his thoughts on agile software development principles patterns and practices. He who will be sharing his thoughts with us on what he likes about Agile Software Development, Part 1. In Part 2, he&#8217;ll share with us his thoughts on what he doesn&#8217;t like about Agile Software Development.<\/p>\n<p>The Agile movement in software development is heavily influenced by Lean and the Toyota Production System &#8211; often times called <a href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/lean-for-software-interview-with-mary-poppendieck\/340\/\" title=\"lean for software, kanban\">Lean for Software<\/a>. As you read this &#8211; especially if you&#8217;re not a software guy &#8211; be careful to look for applications of Lean in how software is developed.<\/p>\n<p>Enjoy the post.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>This is my view of the <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20130520215010\/http:\/\/www.versionone.com\/Agile101\/Agile-Software-Development-Benefits\">agile software development<\/a> process from an outsider&#8217;s perspective.\u00a0 Now I&#8217;m no agile expert, far from it actually.\u00a0 I was always told that we&#8217;re an agile shop or that we use waterfall (cringe). Ok, that&#8217;s fair enough.\u00a0 All that meant to me was that we do releases every couple weeks or weekly and I have to go to a bunch of team meetings.\u00a0 I also would have to write these things called stories and they couldn&#8217;t be too broad and being too narrow meant I missed some functionality.\u00a0 It always seems to be the case that the last place I worked did it wrong, so I always had to learn another way to write a story, how to assign points, and what I had to do to accept or reject a story. Not a big deal once you learn what&#8217;s expected.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-10621\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" title=\"Daily-Agile-Scrum\" src=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Daily-Agile-Scrum-300x149.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"149\" srcset=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Daily-Agile-Scrum-300x149.jpg 300w, https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Daily-Agile-Scrum-600x299.jpg 600w, https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Daily-Agile-Scrum.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Now, I&#8217;ve been in the internet marketing space for about 10 years now and have had the opportunity to work for many different companies from small start-ups to Fortune 100&#8217;s.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve had to wear many different hats in this time.\u00a0 Sometimes I was the marketing jack-of-all trades, other times I was the SEO guy, and more recently the consultant\/project manager\/product manager, slash this or that.\u00a0 Basically, I&#8217;ve always been a stakeholder in agile terms.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve worked in agile shops, waterfall shops and shops where there is no process.\u00a0 My job success has always been measured by how far I can take the business from points A, B, C and D.\u00a0 It&#8217;s vitally important that I get some quick wins starting out to prove my worth and then continue to move the ball or move the needle or get to the next level. Speed and buy-in are always a factor, results are a must, and time is of the essence.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Waterfall versus Agile<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Working in a waterfall shop usually meant that I had to spell out all requirements for a typical request, bug, or functionality in great detail.\u00a0 All requirements had to be included and every detail accounted for.\u00a0 I find breaking it down to a very basic level seems to work best here without insulting anyone.\u00a0 Drawing a picture and placing arrows seem to work best to get the point across.\u00a0 Then everything had to go through a vetting process and get signed off multiple times.\u00a0 Waterfall releases were always planned months in advance and pretty much set in stone.\u00a0 This meant that if I started with a company right at the beginning of the new cycle, which always seemed to be the case, then I had months of waiting to get anything done.\u00a0 Even the simplest change took an act of God to make happen, if it were to happen mid-cycle or in the next release.\u00a0 Well, that&#8217;s never a good thing as mentioned above and I always knew it was a matter of time before I was gone.\u00a0 Later, I would watch my requests get worked in and the site become successful as a result.\u00a0 This is more of an issue with impatient management and managing expectations on my part than the process itself, but I think it points out the inefficiencies with Waterfall project management.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward to <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20130520215010\/http:\/\/www.versionone.com\/Agile101\/Agile-Development-Success\">agile development success<\/a>.\u00a0 I have to say that I really like agile much better.\u00a0 The reason I like it better is simple: speed.\u00a0 We have more releases which mean I can effect marketing changes and web changes much faster.\u00a0 Sprints can be planned out months in advance as well, but most times they are only planned a release or two ahead.\u00a0 There is also some flexibility in adding additional stories to the queue.\u00a0 So for me, getting a couple stories placed in a sprint or added if the points are available is always a good thing.\u00a0 Marketing things get done faster, numbers come in faster and everyone is happy.\u00a0 More importantly, I get to keep my job.\u00a0 However, agile isn&#8217;t without its quirks either.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>About Joe Woods<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-10622\" style=\"margin: 5px;\" title=\"Joe and Kids\" src=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Joe-and-Kids-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Joe-and-Kids-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Joe-and-Kids-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Joe-and-Kids-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Joe-and-Kids-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/>Joe Woods is one of the top SEO and Internet Marketing Specialists in the Southeast US and has worked with Agile and Scrum since 2007. Joe currently works with Version One and many of the industry&#8217;s leading Agile coaches to help IT teams and practitioners evangelize the many different process from Agile, Scrum, XP and Kanban.<\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re pleased to welcome Joe Woods as a guest post today who will share with us his thoughts on agile software development principles patterns and practices. He who will be sharing his thoughts with us on what he likes about Agile Software Development, Part 1. In Part 2, he&#8217;ll share with us his thoughts on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12327,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[417],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>agile software development principles patterns and practices<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"agile software development principles patterns and practices from An outsider&#039;s view\" \/>\n<meta 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