Delivering Software Certainty

Delivering Software Certainty

Great Lakes Software Excellence Conference 2008
November 2008

Shawn Crowley

Clients are afraid that their project might go off the rails if they don’t bring back a fixed bid on cost and a guaranteed delivery date from the developers. Developers are afraid of making promises because they know that the project requirements will change. Consequently, projects are prone to kick off with a subtle, lurking, feeling of wariness and fear.

Developers and project managers often feel they are faced with a paradox when asked to scope and direct a project that is supposed to be agile. Agile projects are sometimes misunderstood to be open-ended, time-and-materials projects that are not to be bridled with upfront estimation and iterative reality checks against a target.

Experience has shown that there is value in recognizing the inherent conflict in providing accurate upfront estimates while allowing requirements to change. Trust and shared vision can be achieved by the client and developers collaboratively participating in a limited initial scoping process. Using the initial scope and vision as a beacon, a team can iteratively measure the project’s progress and collaborate with the client to steer the project in the most valuable direction.

Lessons learned from real projects – both successes and failures – will be shared. Usage of practices and tools for effective project management, including: feature specification, release planning, risk management, story point estimation, iterative reporting and iterative planning will be discussed.

Delivering Software Certainty [slides]