Re: GAPS in our 'kind of' Agile SDLC

Greg - I won't reply but post your description either on the ScrumAlliance
list: http://groups.google.com/group/scrumalliance?hl=en&pli=1 or the
ScrumDevelopment mailing list (on yahoo groups)..

Back to client coaching work.

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On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Greg <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>
> If there is a SDLC/Agile/Methodology Group/Forum I should post this to,
> please let me know.
>
> Some background:
>
> -ASP.NET 3.5 SaaS Web Application; 2 years in Production
> -3rd Party/Vendor offshore development team
> -5 developers, 1 QA, 1 Engineer/Project Manager on that offshore team; this
> team is not employed by us
>
> Physical Environments:
> Production, Staging and QA.
>
> The developers do their development locally, their work gets promoted to
> our QA environment where their QA person tests. Bugs get fixed, re-tested
> and then they do a promotion to Staging where we do our User Acceptance
> Testing. From there a promotion is done to Production once we give the green
> light in Staging.
>
> Internally I manage all Software Development and Integration Projects (we
> are currently integrating with 2 Saas products and have plans for more).
>
> We are trying to be Agile with our SDLC but like businesses we are given
> deadlines by the business folks.
>
> We do a good job gathering and documenting requirements, but like most
> shops scope creep is also an issue. We do a pretty good job managing it but
> again if business says it has to change, it changes.
>
> For our current release we did 4 Sprints. A sprint is 3 weeks of
> development by the developers. Every week a QA build is done for the QA
> person to start testing locally. The 4th week of the Sprint is for fixing
> bugs found in QA. This week is also when the QA person promotes a build to
> our QA environment where QA testing continues with the addition of
> regression testing.
>
> For the Agile/Scrum Masters out there, where are our Gaps? The first big
> one I see is we are driven by dates. I have little control over that. So, do
> we throw Agile out the door? The business folks are good at recognizing in
> order to get new stuff in, stuff has to come out, so Agile "works" for us in
> that sense; though we are still driven by dates.
>
> The offshore team is a challenge for us too; especially since they are not
> our employees. How do other folks use Agile when the development and QA
> folks are not your employees AND are offshore?
>
> How to document requirements has always been a challenge for me with Agile.
> We do not use cards, never been able to sell it. We start with a master/full
> list of requirements, meet with business to prioritize them and then figure
> out how much we can get into a Sprint. This "feels" Agile but I am not
> convinced it really is.
>
> Once a requirement is documented and prioritized and then there is a change
> to the requirement is a challenge for us to. We keep everything in
> SharePoint, so we have Versions. Traceability is a problem though. When was
> the change made? Why? Who drove the change? Who approves the change? How do
> folks manage this in an Agile environment?
>
> Another challenge we have is our software vendor uses their system for
> project and bug tracking, we use WORD, Excel, VISIO, etc and then SharePoint
> for file management. We use their system too (we upload our documents to
> their "tickets" and add Comments to their tickets as needed), but we always
> have 2 systems of record and we always wonder if they are in synch. The only
> way to know is to keep doing audits; which takes time. We do not want to use
> their system 100% as they may not always be around (they go out of business,
> we go with another vendor, we bring development in-house, etc).
>
> With Agile, release early and release often makes sense. Are we following
> this by doing 4 weeks Sprints, where at the end of the 4 weeks the goal is
> to promote a build to Staging for us to do our UAT? Then, when we finish UAT
> should it go to production? Or, like it does now, should we wait for
> everything to be completed (all 4 sprints in this case)? Our plan for
> Staging was for UAT and then a place for internal users to test and see the
> new features before they go to production.
>
> Should we even be trying to be Agile if business and dates will always
> drive a release schedule?
>
> We are wrapping up a big Release (4 4 week Sprints). We want to make
> changes now for the next big release.
>
> Thanks for any input/feedback.
>
>  
>