management

Attitudes Regarding Iterative Software Development Planning and Measuring

Agile Development | November 23, 2010

Attitudes Regarding Iterative Software Development Planning and MeasuringNowhere is the change in values of iterative development planning and measuring more important than in the management team. If the project is to iterate successfully, it must be managed iteratively.

The project manager must believe that an iterative approach is the best way to manage the project and must be prepared to set aside any inflexible, predictive, waterfall management practices that have been used before. This doesn’t mean that you should throw away all the good management practices and experiences you have built up over the years; good, disciplined project management is essential to the effective application of iterative development techniques. It is just that you must put aside some of the conventional wisdom about planning to give yourself the freedom to fully exploit the flexibility and power of the iterative approach.

The conventional approach to planning is prescriptive, based on the assumptions that the work which needs to be done can be predicted with great precision and that the unusual rarely occurs. This is true for many things—building a bridge over a highway or a standard family dwelling or a prefabricated commercial building, for example. These engineering efforts are technically predictable, and planning this kind of work is based on hundreds of years of experience. This experience has given rise to the generic project lifecycle in which the different types of project activities are aligned to the single phase that bears their name (i.e. Requirements, Analysis, Design, Code, Test and Deploy). Read More

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Theory X and Theory Y by Ivar Jacobson

Agile Scrum | February 18, 2008 avatar

Management styles have a huge effect on software development teams.  A significant shift required in  the movement toward a more agile approach is a change in the way that teams are managed and measured.Management styles can be described in  a number of ways - Theory X and Theory Y are popular approaches dating back to the 1960's but still applicable today.   Basically, Theory X assumes that people are basically untrustworthy slackers who need to be constantly monitored and told what to do and are only working because they need the money.  Theory Y assumes that people want to do a good job and are motivated by more than money, and that people produce their best results when they are working in a supportive environment that frees them to be creative and productive.It should come as no surprise that a necessary condition for a movement toward agile teaming is a "Theory Y" management culture - a team trying to adopt an agile approach in an organization with a "Theory X" management culture is doomed to failure and frustration; it will constantly be fighting the management system and the surrounding culture. In these organizations, the management culture (and its supporting measurement system) must change along with the team approach in order for both to be successful. Before you can change it, however, you need to understand it.

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