Systems Scores with Scrum and Application Lifecycle Management

1- What were some of the problems with DST system’ old software development environment? I think they were some many software problem, such as the managers were unable to easily determine how the resources were being allocated, which also the employees were working on certain projects and status of specific assets. The group development had used a mixtures of tools processes and source code control systems without any unified repository for code or a standardized developer tool set. And Also I think DST must use new method and better than the old traditional.

2- How did Scrum development help solve some of those problems? The Scrum is exists software development tools and experienced strong results. The company accelerated its software development cycle from 24 to 6 months and developer productivity increased 20 percents. I think Scrum helped to development the company because its agile software, and relies on self-organization.

3- What other adjustments did DST make to be able to use Scrum more effectively in its software projects? What management, organization and technology issues had to be addressed? I think CollabNet specializes in software designed to work well with agile software development methods such as Scrum. So what I think from the article is DST adapted Collabnet’s subversion product to help with the management control of changes to project documents, programs, and other information stored as computer files. DST adaption of Collabnet because their product is so fast in only 10 weeks.

1. Some of the problems with DST System’s old software development environment were using manual processes, unable to see how resources were being allocated, what employees were doing what jobs and the status of their specific assets. Another problem was their use of a waterfall method to design, code, test and integrate products. This method pushed them farther behind competitors. 2. Scrum helped DST with the use of its sprint iterations. This enabled DST to move away from the waterfall system and have the coding, testing and integration done by the end of the sprint. Sprints were usually a month long. The sprints also provide a review for product owners and stakeholders to provide feedback for the next influence of the next sprint.

3. DST was successful in accelerating its development cycle significantly. DST was able to incresase developer productivity as well. Along the way, they had to integrate an application life cycle management product to unify the software development environment. They set up a project evaluation team to try and develop the right environment and minimize standardization problems between tools and processes and the break down of processes. The management team looked at cost effectiveness, adoption ease and the effectiveness of the features. DST conducted tests of many projects before deciding on the cost effective, easily implemented CollabNet system. Agile scrum helps the company in saving time and money.

Scrum methodology enables project’s where the business requirements documentation is hard to quantify to be successfully developed. Fast moving, cutting edge developments can be quickly coded and tested using this method, as a mistake can be easily rectified. It is a lightly controlled method which insists on frequent updating of the progress in work through regular meetings. Thus there is clear visibility of the project development. Like any other agile methodology, this is also iterative in nature.

It requires continuous feedback from the user. Due to short sprints and constant feedback, it becomes easier to cope with the changes. Daily meetings make it possible to measure individual productivity. This leads to the improvement in the productivity of each of the team members. Issues are identified well in advance through the daily meetings and hence can be resolved in speedily It is easier to deliver a quality product in a scheduled time. Agile Scrum can work with any technology/ programming language but is particularly useful for fast moving web 2.0 or new media projects. The overhead cost in terms of process and management is minimal thus leading to a quicker, cheaper result. Drawbacks:

Agile Scrum is one of the leading causes of scope creep because unless there is a definite end date, the project management stakeholders will be tempted to keep demanding new functionality is delivered. If a task is not well defined, estimating project costs and time will not be accurate. In such a case, the task can be spread over several sprints. If the team members are not committed, the project will either never complete or fail. It is good for small, fast moving projects as it works well only with small team.

This methodology needs experienced team members only. If the team consists of people who are novices, the project cannot be completed in time. Scrum works well when the Scrum Master trusts the team they are managing. If they practice too strict control over the team members, it can be extremely frustrating for them, leading to demoralisation and the failure of the project. If any of the team members leave during a development it can have a huge inverse effect on the project development Project quality management is hard to implement and quantify unless the test team are able to conduct regression testing after each sprint.

Scrum is just one of the many iterative and incremental agile software development method. You can find here a very detailed description of the process. In the SCRUM methodology a sprint is the basic unit of development. Each sprint is preceded by a planning meeting, where the tasks for the sprint are identified and an estimated commitment for the sprint goal is made, and followed by a review or retrospective meeting where the progress is reviewed and lessons for the next sprint are identified.

During each sprint, the team creates finished portions of a product. In the Agile methods each iteration involves a team working through a full software development cycle, including planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, unit testing, and acceptance testing when a working product is demonstrated to stakeholders. So if in a SCRUM sprint you perform all the software development phases (from requirement analysis to acceptance testing), and in my opinion you should, you can say SCRUM sprints correspond to AGILE iterations.