One of my favorite TV shows lately has been MythBusters. For those of you who haven't heard of the show, the title pretty much explains it all. A team of individuals attempt to debunk some well-known myth, wives tale, movie element, or folk legend. Many times they're successful...sometimes they conclude that the myth is plausible. In any event, it's always fun to watch and usually they end up blowing up something, which always makes for good TV.
For several years, I've been convinced that Agile Development is the right way to develop software and I've made every attempt to let agile methods impact my work and my projects. But now, almost 7 years after first hearing about eXtreme Programming, I've started to believe that a truly agile project is a myth. It's something I read about and know about anecdotally, but like Elvis sightings and on-time air travel, it's something that has never happened to me.
Don't get me wrong...I've witnessed many valiant attempts at agility in software development. But in every case I've been a part of so far, it has either been squashed by upper management or the entire team simply wasn't on-board. At my current job, I've been encouraged that many steps have been made in recent weeks to be more agile. But it's been a slow-go and not a day goes by that the old habits aren't resurrected at least a little bit.
So is all lost? Has the agile myth been busted?
A couple of weeks ago, I had the great privilege to sit in for a few hours with the development team at Semantra. In that very short visit, I witnessed what I believe to be the most agile practice of software development I've ever seen. Unlike anything I've ever seen before, their development process screamed agility. They worked from a prioritized list, in short time-boxed/fixed-scope iterations, pairing up, writing unit-tests, doing just-enough just-in-time design, had a product owner sitting with the development team, and are moving quickly to address business needs. It was truly a beautiful thing. It was spot-on with something I've read recently about how software should be developed. It felt good...it felt right...it's how I want to develop software.
What makes the difference for Semantra? I think agility is working for them because everyone is committed to it. Everyone from the development team all the way up to the CEO are on-board with developing their product using agile techniques. I think that's the key. If anyone is skeptical or doesn't fully understand agile development, they're a liability to its success. But if everyone has bought into it, agile development can work.
Thanks to Semantra, I'm heartened to report that agile development is very plausible. Given this encouraging news, I'd like to continue observing Semantra's agile endeavors. To that end, I've agreed to take a position as an "agile developer" with Semantra, starting on August 27th. I'm very hopeful that in this position I'll finally be able to declare agile development as a reality and not a myth.
If not, then in true MythBusters fashion, maybe we'll get to blow something up.
