Implementing AGILE in a new software development company - Agile Software Development Made Easy!

Message from discussion Implementing AGILE in a new software development company
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Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:12:30 -0700 (PDT)
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References: <a2e45336-6e97-4b73-a0b4-1a6d6c027054@v13g2000pro.googlegroups.com>
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Subject: Re: Implementing AGILE in a new software development company
From: "dwrdjo...@googlemail.com" <dwrdjo...@googlemail.com>
To: All About Agile <allaboutagile@googlegroups.com>

I'm new to the forum, so pls. excuse me if I cover some topics that
have already been discussed.

I presume to support your original question - that your organisation
has identified a number of high level business objectives that call
for a more iterative heartbeat from the software project teams? e.g.
quicker project delivery, reduced risk or accurately meeting customer
requirements?

Without a clear definition of the corporate goals, you're out for
beating. Over the past years I have witnessed and participated in
multiple projects that set out to implement Agile (replace more
traditional Waterfall practices) without a strategic intent, simply
because Agile was seen as the next best thing.

Once you're organisation has clearly identified a set fo high level
corporate objectives, which Agile shall be benchmarked against then
your org needs to consider the next phase - Organisational Change.

Agile development led project environments are very different from
traditional ones. Your organisation therefore needs to understand what
resource, process and application changes are needed to efficiently
migrate to Agile. I.E. the business will have spent years refining its
current capabilities to suite Waterfall. It is critical that the
changes needed are fully identified and the changes are planned for.
One simple example is the transformation from a Project Management led
project to one that is led by a Scrum Master (it  is not a direct
replacement).

One you=92re happy with your change program, you then need to identify a
couple of projects (medium size =96 50 project team members) that will
become the early adopters. The trick here, is to treat these initial
transformational projects using Agile =96 break the problem down into
smaller manageable components, focus on fortnightly deliverables and
fully engage the stakeholders.

Final comment -  don=92t fall into the trap of analysing the performance
of these initial projects purely from an issues perspective (i.e.what
went wrong) their outcome. Effort should focus on identifying what
went well, so that they can be repeated from project to project.

Good luck.
Edward

On Sep 10, 7:04=A0pm, MFJ <marcelle.johan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Agile community,
>
> Honestly I'm very new with this AGILE or SCRUM methodology in software
> development. I have found a paper that wrote by Joseph C. Thomas title
> "Organizational Structure for Innovative Software Development" is very
> interesting to start with.
>
> Background:
> I have been assigned by the owner of the company to setup a new
> software development company. Our current company is one of the
> subsidiaries within the holding company. We are providing IT services
> that divided into 3 main services:
> 1. IT Operations, Maintenance and Assets provider
> 2. SAP Consultants (R/3 and SBO)
> 3. Research & Development (Servers Product, Networks and
> Applications)
>
> I am the head of R&D Department and based on my experience within this
> company is our client always expect the price estimation at the
> beginning and we have to estimated what is the dollar number. I found
> this is very difficult to be done without the deeper understanding
> what is the detail of users expectation. Meaning we have to work in
> detail at the start and they (the business analyst, system analyst and
> programmer) should spend a lot of time before we really knew what
> client expect.
>
> my questions is :
> - Is there any sample of organization chart that I could refer to
> implement AGILE or SCRUM methodology ? what I found in the paper that
> I state above is I don't know where to put the system analyst,
> business analyst and the group of Marketing/Sales
> - Is there any simple business flow for the AGILE or SCRUM software
> development company ?
>
> I really hope and appreciated if someone could help me on this.
>
> Regards,
>
> Marcelle F. Johannes
> R&D Manager