The Agile school of software development’s currently one of the most accepted methodologies for improving productivity. Targeted mainly towards IT managers and CIOs, Agile methods promote an interactive approach which have the ability to help flatten your organization’s cost of change curve.

The Manifesto for Agile Software Development was first introduced in 2001, and outlines the foundation of Agile in twelve principles:

1. Customer satisfaction by rapid delivery of useful software
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development
3. Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)
4. Working software is the principal measure of progress
5. Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace
6. Close, daily co-operation between business people and developers
7. Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location)
8. Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
10. Simplicity- the art of maximizing the amount of work not done- is essential
11. Self-organizing teams
12. Regular adaptation to changing circumstances

Cost of Change Curve

First introduced by Barry Bohem in 1981, the cost of change curve represents the exponential increase in cost as it relates to making a change during the normal development phase of a product. This means that as your product moves farther down the developmental pipeline it becomes more costly to make changes and remedy errors.

That’s a good argument for Agile since it ensures you leave the current production phase with a product that’s as close to perfect as you can make it – particularly because Agile methodology calls for testing and up-front integration which translates to rapid production and minimal initial design. Since the test code’s written before functional code and automated test suites are built around the evolving code, developers are allowed to make rapid and aggressive changes.

The ability to make these changes is one of Agile’s key features and the result is a reduction in the amount of product errors late in the development phase, reducing the cost of change. Even if your organization enjoys a rather flat cost of change curve, Agile ideals can be applied to reduce the cost of change throughout the software life cycle.

Scrum

Scrum’s another widely accepted approach to implementing the Agile philosophy, which includes both managerial and development processes. This approach relies on a self-organizing, cross-functional team supported by a scrummaster and a product owner. Scrum makes your organization Agile by ensuring quick progress, continuously creating value, and by keeping projects on track. The most important concepts of Scrum are:

• Product backlog - A complete list of requirements that are not currently in the product release. Typical backlog items include bugs and usability/performance improvements.
• CI - Also known as continuous integration; allows for scrum teams to continuously integrate their work. This will often happen on a daily basis.
• User story – Describes problems that should be solved by the system being built.
• Scrummaster - The manager of the Scrum project.
• Burndown chart - The amount of work remaining within a sprint, i’s updated daily, and also tracks progress.
• Sprint backlog - A list of backlog items assigned to a sprint, but not yet completed

Kanban

Kanban means visual board – and that’s just what it is, a development process that revolves around a board to manage works in progress (WIP). A Kanban board includes “lanes,” each denoting different phases a project might take. It moves WIPs across the board and deploys them into production when they reach the done column. Since Kanban development practice revolves around WIP management each state of progress is limited to a set number of projects. Organizations able to leverage this high frequency of delivery typically enjoy a large financial benefit.  The most important concepts of Kanban are:

• Swim lanes - The horizontal lanes of a Kanban board represent the different states in which a WIP or task can exist.
• Backlog - A list of backlog items awaiting deployment, but not yet completed.
• Stories – A particular user need assigned to a development team.
  
  

Hi everyone! Thanks again for attending last week’s Central Texas Atlassian User Group (CTXAUG). We were thrilled to have 16 attendees for our second meeting – and hope to top 25 at our third! View the meeting slides here, which include Kenn North’s presentation about how his company leverages Confluence and Jira; view Nassim Massah’s presentation about Atlassian Build Pipelines here.

Also, Atlassian has asked user groups to migrate to Facebook for all AUG news / event scheduling. Beginning this week, we’ll stop updating our Meetup page and migrate to our new Facebook page. Please “Like” us to receive updates – and if you don’t use Facebook, please follow us on Twitter. You don’t need a Facebook account to RSVP for CTXAUG events on Facebook.

Hope to see you guys at our third meeting. Take care, Atlassians!

Congrats, 2011 graduates! And special congrats to the University of Texas at Austin Class of 2011, our alma mater. You’ll be offered many unsolicited, bigger-picture pieces of advice tomorrow – so we thought we’d get your feet wet with this short note:

You’ve probably heard before that life is a classroom, and that you’ll graduate many times over the years. This is true. There is something to be learned every day, be it through success or failure. As our friend @eoshow says, “you can’t know it all, and that’s okay…just admit when you don’t know.” Think of your work as a paid internship. On one hand you’re paid to work, but on the other you’re being paid to learn.

With that in mind, please enjoy some better advice from two of our favorite commencement speeches:

1. Kurt Vonnegut, MIT Class of 1997 – “Wear sunscreen” – with some especially cheesy effects

2. David Foster Wallace, Kenyon College Class of 2005 – “This is water” – (#1 on Time’s Top 10)

Watch Part 2 here.

To all Austin-area Atlassian users (we know there are lots of you) – please join us next month for the second-ever Central Texas Atlassian User Group (CTXAUG)! At our first meeting we enjoyed snacks, beer, two Jira and Confluence whizzes, and the chance to talk shop with other Atlassian users about how they use Atlassian tools.

The event is free – just RSVP here and show up Wednesday May 18 at 6PM. Location and directions on our Meetup page.

Whether you’re a Greenhopper fan, crazy about Crucible, or just looking for advice, come on down and have a good time. We’ll look forward to it.

Follow us on Twitter at @ctxaug.

We’re excited to announce that our primary Atlassian guru, developer, ace, bad-a… Chris Pepe, has slain a dragon. A huge, fire-breathing, metaphorical dragon.

Chris completed Atlassian’s Here Be Dragons quest, in which developers from villages worldwide are challenged with the task of fully integrating a suite of Atlassian applications. And he did it without a sword.

Atlassian challenges its most skilled customers and evaluators to the task. Those who achieve victory as Chris connected issues, wikis, and source code to create an agile set of Atlassian tools for building software fast – that awesome, integrated experience we (and Atlassian) talk about.

Chris’ dragon slaying included:

• Dragons Stage 1 – Install Java, PostgreSQL and Crowd
• Dragons Stage 2 – Install Jira
• Dragons Stage 3 – Install GreenHopper into Jira
• Dragons Stage 4 – Install Confluence
• Dragons Stage 5 – Install FishEye and Crucible
• Dragons Stage 6 – Get Jira and FishEye talking
• Dragons Stage 7 – Get Jira and Crucible talking
• Dragons Stage 8 – Install Bamboo
• Dragons Stage 9 – Bamboo gadgets and Jira victory

We’re excited to have Chris’ black belt Atlassian skills in our arsenal. You’ll have the chance to meet him when we host the first Central Texas Atlassian User Group (CTXAUG) later this month, as well as in our booth at SXSW 2011 Interactive Trade Show. But if you’re adopting an Atlassian tool in the meantime, talk to us now!

We’re excited to host the first Central Texas Atlassian User Group next month – a place for Atlassian users (Jira, Confluence, Greenhopper, Crucible, etc) to connect and share ideas. We’re expecting over 50 attendees, so we’ll be starting off with a bang!

The meeting details:
Thursday, March 17, 2011
6:00PM to 8:15PM
Scholz Beer Garten
1607 San Jacinto Boulevard (at 17th Street)
North Dining Room
Austin, TX 78701

We’ll provide some pizza to munch on. Beer can be purchased at the bar. Expect mingling, brief group planning, and two fantastic speakers:

Christopher Pepe, Praecipio Consulting
Sean deBardelaben, AT&T

To RSVP, visit our Meetup page or our Eventbrite page.

We’ve talked a lot on this blog about what Atlassian Jira and Confluence are and how they can be used. We’re big fans. But some of you are already benefiting from them, and are big fans too. That’s why the Praecipio Consulting team has launched the Central Texas Atlassian User Group (@ctxaug), the first Atlassian user group in the Austin metro.

This user group is open to all current and prospective Atlassian product users in the Central Texas Area interested in knowledge sharing and mingling with fellow users – over happy hour, of course. Quarterly group meetings will last 2-3 hours, and will give attendees the chance to:

• Share and learn Atlassian product knowledge, best practices, and case studies with fellow current and prospective users.
• Address the needs of both Atlassian product system administrators as well as novice and experienced product users.
• Network and socialize with fellow Atlassian product users.
• Meet four times a year on Wednesday or Thursday evenings in locations throughout the Austin area.

When possible, we’ll have an actual Atlassian team member on hand to answer any product questions or discuss how to solve California budget-scale problems.

For more info, follow us on Twitter (@ctxaug) or visit our Meetup page to RSVP for our 2011 Q1 meetup. We look forward to seeing you!