One way to address scalability with scrum is to have Scrum teams each having 15-minute meetings where they summarize what is happening. This can work if the right people are involved in a project, but scaling remains an issue, Boehm said.
Transitioning to agile can be difficult, said conference speaker Mike Cohn, co-founder of Mountain Goat Software and a founder of the Agile Alliance. He ran his first Scrum project in 1995. The transition itself should be treated as a project and include the formation of a transition team, he said.
"One of the main things we have to do is overcome resistance," he said. Cohn recalled an instance in which a human resources department resisted a switch to pairing of developers in an agile project after being presented with an argument that this would disrupt individual personnel evaluations.
He dismissed the notion that agile prevents a customer from knowing the exact scope and date of project deliverables because the same argument can be made about waterfall-based projects. Terms of contracts can be negotiated, such as providing an option to swap out development of certain functionality for other capabilities to meet a set deadline, Cohn explained.
"Nobody out there's saying agile programming is a silver bullet," Cohn said. Agile will not solve all problems but will expose problems already there, he said.
Although agile programming can be used with development in any language, Maximillien said languages like JavaScript and Ruby are better suited for it. "I would say some languages are a lot more agile than others," he said.
"Both of those are very dynamic. Instead of being statically typed, they are dynamically typed, so that allows you to make changes to the software a lot faster," Maximillien said.
IBM officials, meanwhile, said to expect an announcement about the company’s Jazz platform for application lifecycle management at the upcoming IBM Rational Software Developer Conference 2007 event, which is being held in Orlando, Fla., the week of June 10.
This whitepaper explains the terminology and concepts behind Data Replication technologies and establishes some sizing rules through worked examples. Learn the new paradigm in disaster tolerance—protect data anywhere.
Download now »
Server virtualization is a popular option for dealing with mounting datacenter costs. Another equally promising approach is the use of an Application Delivery Controller. Citrix NetScaler provides a low-cost way for organizations to reduce their server count and accrue cost savings from a reduction in space, cooling, power and personnel.
Download now »
The emergence of WLANs has created a new breed of security threats to enterprise networks.
Included in HP ProCurve WLAN solutions is security technology that alleviates threats from WLANs through:
* Monitoring wireless activity inside and out of the enterprise
* Classifying WLAN transmissions into harmful and harmless
* Preventing transmissions that pose a security threat to the enterprise network
* Locating participating devices for physical remediation
Effectively address data protection challenges, implementing solutions that help store and protect business–critical data while cutting costs and improving efficiency and reliability.
Download now »
Sign up to receive InfoWorld Resource Alerts
Recommend This
