Scaling Agile Methods

U sing agile methods to develop large systems presents a thorny set of issues. If large teams are to produce lots of software functionality quickly, the agile methods involved must scale to meet the task. After all, a small team could create the software if the functionality to be delivered was small and, conversely, could be delivered given we had the time. Scaling agile teams thus becomes an issue if the only option for meeting a system delivery deadline is to have many developers working concurrently. At the First Invited Canadian Workshop on Scaling Agile Methods held 20–21 February in Banff, Alberta, 35 concerned professionals met to discuss these issues. The industrial delegates, who had been putting agile methods to work (using lightweight methods like Crystal, Extreme Programming, Dynamic Systems Development Method, Feature-Driven Development , Scrum, and a scaled-down version of the Rational Unified Process) addressed a wide range of issues, notably how to I Scale agile methods to very large projects with barely sufficient up-front planning and architectural work I Deploy a federation of coordinated teams (each internally operating as an agile team) in scaling up agile ideas I Use agile methods in teams larger than a typical XP team I Characterize the agile continuum through different project caricatures, ranging from typical collocated XP projects to large, multiteam, multiyear ones The academic delegates shared their experiences and ideas on how to I Use agile practices, such as test-driven development and pair programming, as pedagog-ical tools in software engineering curricula I Investigate agile practices' effectiveness I Reconcile agile methods with architectural paradigms I Deploy agile methods in research projects Significant issues During the first day, delegates reached consensus on the following top seven issues associated with scaling agile methods. Most delegates agreed that agile methods fit small projects where problems of scale are minor. However, difficulty arises in scaling these methods to fit large projects where teams of teams work together. Most delegates also agreed that deploying agile methods in organizations involves using a mixed metaphor: agile methods must operate in a world where both agile and traditional methods can be used together. The issue then becomes how to scale agile methods without sacrificing the underlying principles of the Agile Manifesto (see www.agilemanifesto.org for the history of the agile movement, its goals, and its governing philosophies). A sweet-spot agile project typically involves a small, self-organizing, collocated team of