Re: [AM] Another quandry from the field - consistency

[email protected]
Newsgroups gmane.comp.programming.modeling.agile
Message-ID <[email protected]>
In a message dated 2/11/2004 1:41:49 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
[email protected] writes:
One developer actually told me straight out that he found that the agile 
approach works best for him after all of the requirements are gathered, analyzed 
and the system architecture pretty much completely defined. 
Go figure.
Actually that's not as weird as it seems.  In my travels over the past 
several years I've come across many variations of that theme.  The agile approach 
(iterative, incremental, user involved, etc.) is used for the development or 
build phase of the Waterfall.  In many places where the entire concept of Agile 
would cause total disruption of the fabric of management, it is a decent way of 
getting many of the benefits of agility behind the scenes w/o mgt having to 
deal with the newness of it all.  
We do upfront architectural stuff first to make sure what we eventually 
produce will not cause problems elsewhere in the organization and ensure we are 
tackling the right problem.   We then do a modicum of requirements definition to 
make sure we're pointed in the right direction for each of our prototyping 
sessions, then its all iterative team effort with the customer involved heavily. 
We do one week deliveries.  When the user/customer is satisfied with the 
product we move on into integration (integrating the code with other teams' code 
being developed at the same time) and then system and acceptance testing which 
are basically out of the waterfall or V models, but which make mgt feel a lot 
more comfortable. Since we are usually developing large scale systems for whole 
enterprises, system and acceptance (of the entire package working together) 
testing seems a reasonable thing to do even if it doesn't seem to be 
particularly agile.  By then we've gotten much of the benefits of agility into the code.
Bastardized approach to be sure.  A little of this and a little of that, but 
it works.  
So sneaking XP into the build phase of a waterfall (particularly in the 
government setting) doesn't seem too far fetched, you know?
The goal is to solve the problem, not necessarily solve it a particulal way.
-steve

For more information about AM, visit the Agile Modeling Home Page at www.agilemodeling.com
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