Agile Development.
The idea of working on an Agile Development Methodology team is exciting to me because of it’s familiarity and logic. I like process but I don’t think it is a replacement for thinking. My early experience in software development was on projects that were modeled on the Capability Maturity Model. This was in the early 1990s.
While the team was intentionally working on the Capability Maturity Model processes, we all performed in a manner similar to the principles of the Agile Methods. I haven’t worked on an Agile team yet, since I haven’t worked in software for 10 years, but I know I’m going to love it.
The team I worked with on CMM was very close knit. Because our team was releatively small, even though we had specialists for documentation, testing, quality assurance, database, graphics, systems and so forth, we often moved out of our areas of specialization to do what needed to be done.
Our team also worked on site with the customer and many of us had background experience in the customer activity. This helped us stay close to the customer needs and facilitated successful software. The project didn’t move as fast as what I understand the Agile Development approach delivers, but the projects were phased in and worked from a core product and built outward from there.
The best part of both development approaches are the highlighting of communications. My experience with CMM is the striving for perfection in development practices to create more reliable software. My recollection of the CMM process is the communication between team members and rational review of code. The Agile Method seems to highlight communications with the customer. This is progress.
