Some of you may have noticed that I have changed jobs recently. This move included changing from a waterfall-style development organization to an Agile one. Well, sort of. We’re getting there.
While I am not an Agile expert (at least not yet), even back in the early days of The Productologist, I was writing about Agile, albeit as an outsider looking in. And there has been no shortage of discussion about Agile and its role and effects on Product Management on many famous Product Management blogs: CrankyPM, Product Beautiful, All About Product Management (there are many more, just click on any of the blogs on my Blogroll and search their blogs for “Agile”).
To be honest, the embracing or disdain for Agile development methods feels a lot like a discussion about religion. Either you believe (or as the CrankyPM says, “The writing is on the wall“) or you don’t. A third possibility is that you are looking for something to believe in.
My development team is moving from a loose Agile methodology to a more formalized SCRUM process. Much of our current process looks a lot like SCRUM, but it lacks some of the key components, such as an official ScrumMaster, a strict daily SCRUM meeting and other SCRUM specifics, but we’re close and with a bit of tweaking we’ll get there.
After only seeing a cursory level of Agile in action, I have to say that it is appealing from a Product Management perspective. There is a high level of visibility across the organization and it’s much less chaotic than I had anticipated. I am still not convinced that Agile methods are best for every type of software development team, and I have very few sprint/release cycles under my belt, so I am reserving judgment and commentary until later, but I am watching (and participating) with a critical eye.
If you have experiences, good and/or bad with Agile, and SCRUM in particular, please leave a comment. I’m interested in hearing others’ stories.