Monday, September 15, 2008

Iteration/Sprint != Waterfall...

This discussion about code reviews has triggered a bunch of thoughts in my head. For now, I'll stick to the loudest one.

Sprint boundaries are supposed to provide transparency to the customer and the business, not be a scramble for shippability. The end of the sprint shouldn't create a flurry of check-in activity leading to a pile of new tests to find previously unknown bugs (which can't be fixed in time for review).

Instead, the daily meeting/scrum should provide a heartbeat for the team and every day or so, stories should be completed. Adopting agile should convert you from yearly releases to quarterly releases, to monthly releases, and maybe even weekly releases.

Have you ever flipped a rock in the woods and watched all the critters scramble and disappear? This is not what the day before sprint review is supposed to be like!

Instead of thinking of the sprint review as a point in time to have stuff working for demo and approval; you should be thinking of it as a time to have the customer, product owner, and team assess progress and determine if the upcoming plan, priorities, and communicated delivery dates are still realistic.

Here is another great list you can use to spot an agile team.

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