Serenity isn't freedom from the storm, but peace within the storm

Amidst the storm of unpredictability that is software development, you can find calm and control by using Scrum. An empirical process such as Scrum uses honest feedback, and frequent inspection and adaptation to control progress in an unpredictable environment.

Feedback is obtained from iterative development that delivers tested, integrated and working software every 30 days. As Ken Schwaber says "there's nothing like a tested, integrated system for bringing a forceful dose of reality into any project. When people actually sit in front of a system and work with it, then flaws become truly apparent: both in terms of bugs and in terms of misunderstood requirements".

Frequent and regular opportunities are available to inspect and adapt, to check progress and alter direction or to modify the process. Everything regarding the project is kept visible. If there's bad news, it's better to know about it as early as possible while there's still time to address it. On a daily basis there are the scrum meetings and at the end of each iteration or sprint there's the review meeting and the retrospective. Adaptive planning is used to keep long-term plans fluid, while the planning meeting at the start of each sprint produces a stable plan for that sprint only.

Further reading:
Mishkin Berteig writes about Agile Work Uses Lean Thinking - Empirical Process Control


Tags: agile, scrum, iterative development

posted by Simon Baker @ permalink
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