Steven Thomas
London, UK
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What's New on It's a Delivery Thing
What's happening on It's a Delivery Thing.
Agile Quality Management
24 Jun 2008
Quality Management, in a project context, is concerned with having the right processes to ensure both quality product and a quality project. My article on Agile Quality Management describes Traditional Quality Management, Agile versus Traditional Quality Management, Agile Product Quality, Agile Project Quality, Agile Product Quality, Agile Quality Assurance and Control, and Agile Quality Improvement.
Agile Project Estimating
19 Jun 2008
Estimates are an essential part of Agile Project Planning. Software estimation has always been problematic and people have proposed many different ways to do estimating. Different methods are on a spectrum from formal to informal and from supposedly objective to seemingly subjective. Different methods also get individuals estimate or groups. And some methods estimate size and derive effort while others estimate effort directly. Estimating in the Agile world has settled a certain approach which might be characterised as expert group estimation of size. My Agile Project Estimating article covers Traditional Project Estimation, Agile versus Traditional Estimating, Estimating User Stories, Estimating Tasks, Contingency, and Agile Ballpark Estimates.
Agile Project Execution
17 Jun 2008
Project Execution is where you build the project deliverables and hand them over to your customer, i.e. where you deliver the software. This is where most of the project effort is invested. Agile Project Planning says what you’re going to do when and Agile Monitoring & Control ensures you stay on track. Traditional project management has nothing to say about what you do during project execution. In contrast the Agile community have generally adopted the technical practices from XP and these are part of Agile Project Execution.
Agile Project Monitoring and Control
16 Jun 2008
Agile Project Planning tells us what we expect to do, but plans often turn to custard. The job of the Agile Project Manager is to guide the team to successful delivery despite the challenges the world throws at the project. This article on Agile Project Monitoring and Control is about monitoring the project against the plan and intervening when we notice things going off track. In particular it covers Traditional Project Monitoring & Control, Agile versus Traditional Monitoring & Control, Agile Project control, Agile Project Reporting, and Agile Project Monitoring.
Agile Project Roles and Responsibilities
08 Jun 2008
Each of the Agile methods includes defined roles. Some have more, some have, less. DSDM is the only one of the methods that makes a big deal of making role responsibilities explicit but I think it is important. To work effective as a team people need to know what their role is and the roles of their peers. I've outlined the Agile Project Roles and Responsibilities.
Agile Post-project
06 Jun 2008
The Agile Post-project phase is not really concerned about the project that preceded it, but is instead concerned about the product that resulted. It is a good idea, but in my experience uncommon, to check that the product meets the business need for which it was created.
Agile Project Closure
06 Jun 2008
Agile Project Closure is about handing over to the operations team, tidying up any loose ends, reviewing the project, celebrating, and going home.
Agile Change Management
06 Jun 2008
Agile Change Management is the mechanism to combat scope/feature creep. This article covers defining change management, traditional change management, Agile versus traditional change management, the role of the Agile Project Manager in change management, changes to the Release Plan, and changes to the Timebox Plan.
Agile Project Planning
03 Jun 2008
I believe that Agile Project Management provides certainty of delivery. Planning is what lets us answer the question "When will you be finished?". Planning is, however, just the start of the process. As Moltke pointed out planning is more important that the plan. Any plan will need revisiting and you will need to use Agile Project Control, Agile Change Management, and Agile Risk Management to get the promised certainty of delivery. My Agile Project Planning article covers traditional project planning, agile versus traditional project planning, Release Planning and Timebox Planning.
Agile Pre-Project
03 Jun 2008
I separate the Agile Pre-Project activities from Agile Project Initiation.
It's A Delivery Thing Backlog
02 Jun 2008
Created a Backlog to track what needs doing to the website. Decided not to make it a Release Plan as per Agile Project Planning because I'm doing this in my spare time and can't guarantee consistent effort.
Agile Project Management
30 May 2008
Wrote an article on Agile Project Management starting with a definition of Project Management, and then going on to cover traditional project management, why software development is different, how Agile Project management is different, and the role of an Agile project manager.
Agile Project Scope
31 May 2008
In an Agile project, as with traditional approaches, the scope defines what software to build and deliver. I characterise Agile requirements as high level and focussed. The scope of an Agile project is defined by high level requirements, in the form of User Stories, scheduled in the Release Plan. Detailed (or deep) requirements are still necessary but they are only created when they are needed - this is the focussed bit. I wrote an article on Agile Project Scope to explore this further.
Agile Lifecycle / Agile Heartbeat
29 May 2008
All software development methods, including the Agile ones, have some sort of underlying project lifecycle. System Development Lifecycle (SDLC) is the common name for a software development process. In the Agile world I prefer calling it a "heartbeat" reflecting the organic nature of an Agile project. Some of the Agile methods don't make a big deal of it, and others do. Some have such abstract lifecycles that it is actually hard to know what activities to schedule. And they all use different terms for the same thing. I wrote up a generic Agile Lifecycle / Agile Heartbeat to help make sense of the activities in Agile project management.
Agile Gotchas
29 May 2008
At the BBC we came up with a list of typical Agile Gotchas. I reproduced the list here and at some time in the future I will explain how to address each.
Agile Terminology Comparison
28 May 2008
All the major Agile methods have different Terminology. I try to use traditional terms rather than the term used in any of the Agile methods. The Terminology page gives a rough mapping of the various terms from the various methods.
Agile Project Initiation
29 May 2008
There are some important questions to be addressed at the start of any project like "Why are we doing this project?" and "Should we do this project?" Project Initiation is the phase where these questions are answered. This article outlines traditional project initiation then delves into more detail on Agile Project Initiation.
Agile Risk Management
28 May 2008
Risk management is about identifying, addressing, and eliminating sources of risk before they become a threat to the project. My Agile Risk Management article outlines traditional risk management, how Agile is a risk mitigation strategy, and how to do Agile risk management.
Evidence for Agile
28 May 2008
Although “everyone is doing it” is a reason to consider Agile it isn’t necessarily a reason to go Agile. My Evidence for Agile article outlines reasons for going Agile and where possible provides research data to back up the argument.
XP Refactored
06 Sep 2005
In their book "Extreme Programming Refactored: The Case against XP" Stephens and Rosenberg (2003) outline their reasons for not liking XP as it is published, but they also outline what they do like and how risk can be reduced when using an XP like process. I found their book rather long (and the humour rather unentertaining) but they made some good points and I made a few notes about their conclusions in XP Refactored.
Mark II Function Point Analysis (FPA)
22 Mar 2005
I wanted a summary of the function point counting process as the various manuals and books tended to be overly fulsome. Hence the Mark II Function Point Analysis (FPA) article.
Scaling Agile Software Development for Larger Projects
31 Dec 2004
Back in 1998 Steve McConnell said "Small projects can succeed through sheer force of will and a bit of luck. Medium and large projects require a more systematic approach". I had a quick look at what the various Agilists have to say about Scaling Agile Software Development for Larger Projects.
An Agile Comparison
19 Apr 2002
A Tour of Agile Software Development from Scrum to DSDM via XP and Crystal Orange. Answers the questions "What am I doing different if I'm doing Agile Development?" and "Is Agile good project management? Does it cover the PM bases?".
Controlled Scope Management
05 Mar 2002
I was mulling over why scope creep is desirable/undesirable and came up with a few scenarios that seem to illustration "How much deviation is OK". I wrote up those scenarios in an article on Controlled Scope Management.
