Comments on: Agile is an Attitude, Not a Method

By: CleverWorkarounds » “Governance Man” has fallen into my trap! :-)

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:47:11 +0000

[...] Woodward about the topic of rigour and attitude to make Scrum projects a success. I had read this terrific real life story on the attitude factor required in Agile and was interested in Andrew’s experience with this, specifically in the SharePoint realm. Andrew [...]

By: Paul Culmsee

Paul Culmsee — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 06:38:14 +0000

This article nails it totally and goes way beyond scrum. Readers who strongly identify with this may like this set of articles that tries to get to the true root cause of project failure. The one best practice to rule them all - Part 1 The one best practice to rule them all - Part 2 The one best practice to rule them all - Part 3

By: Rick Tonoli

Rick Tonoli — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:18:53 +0000

I cannot agree more, I’ve personally found that the most progress I’ve made in getting teams to adopts Scrum was not when I preached the benefits of Scrum to them but rather when I encouraged and fostered a culture of open communication, ownership and pride amongst team members. Once those were in place the rest almost magically slotted in and I had no need to preach.

By: Chris Hogan

Chris Hogan — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:35:46 +0000

I saw this on LinkedIn & commented there, I should probably as put it here instead, so I’ll repeat mysel:

Part of “being agile” is being flexible. Following any procedure rigidly leads to fossilization – just think what has happened to DSDM once idiots started playing games “The R in RAD doesn’t mean Rapid it means Right Application Development” (actually said by a speaker at the DSDM conference some years ago).

Not even good English, and the death knell for DSDM as a true agile methodology.

Agility means being able to adapt – even if it is adapting the method itself

By: Ellen Feaheny

Ellen Feaheny — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:05:23 +0000

This is a most excellent article, highly relevant to agile ways, but also to many of the issues and challenges associated with ANY product development (Waterfall OR Agile).
In my experience, communication, accountability, and rapid delivery are always a challenge – especially if you do not have the right tools (and people with right progressive attitudes to drive them).
But to the point on Agile, you fall short of spec’ing the tools required to allow, ease, and proliferate Agile processes and success in organizations.
I will be less coy, and state it flat out – since I am positive of their truth:

At a generic level, you need a reliable WIKI and issue tracking system, rapid build development environment, and metrics to allow the communication, constant evolution, transparency, and continual improvement evaluation of your processes/successes.
To take up a step, I believe solidly that Atlassian provides these solutions, reliably, flexibly, and with many many integration points for progressive success (among so much else to say on this).

Jira and Confluence WIKI already have a strong foothold in the Agile industry, but they are also GREAT before you have achieved “agility”, allowing you to evolve and grow at your own pace.
Further, when ready, the rest of Atlassian’s product set continues to help streamline your environment (Fisheye, Bamboo), testing approaches (Clover), code reviews (Crucible), etc.
Here’s a great straight-up summary of clean integration points.
But don’t believe me – check it out for yourself – MUCH information (Webinars, testimonials, etc.) available in netland to help form your own opinion, and find your own “right agile attitude”.
And yes it is “right attitude” to “get it right”. Thanks for a really great “reality check” article Luis – well stated.