Tutorial

All of this XP and Agile Methods hype is wonderful, but how can people who work on large-scale software projects (i.e., projects with more than 100 people and longer than 1 year duration) take advantage of the benefits in quality, efficiency, and time promised by the hype?

That question is answered in this tutorial. We will go through an approach--one that has worked well in practice--that enables teams to collaborate in an agile way on large projects. This tutorial will cover the following topics:

• Why large projects are indeed different
• Why existing agile methods (XP, Scrum, ...) are insufficient to deal with large projects
• A set of agile practices enabling agile multi-team collaboration
• Experiences with the practices
• How you can do something differently when you get back home

At the end of the session, you will leave the room either shaking your head saying, "I wish I could do that," or you will have definite plans to try these practices when you get back to work.

The material in this tutorial comes principally from the presenter's forthcoming book, "Large-Scale Agile Software Development," which may be available in time for OOPSLA.

Attendee background

This tutorial is geared towards practitioners, software or process engineers in development leadership roles, or someone with influence on such people.

Prerequisites: Experience developing large systems, and exposure to the attendant difficulties of doing so, is required. Knowledge of object technologies is not essential, but it is helpful.

Format

Lecture

Presenter

Ron Crocker is a Fellow of the Technical Staff in the Network and Advanced Technologies group of Motorola's Global Telecom Solutions Sector, where he has pioneered the application of advanced software technologies and processes in the development of next-generation cellular telecommunications systems. He is the author of the forthcoming Addison-Wesley book "Large-Scale Agile Software Development."