Zen and the Art of Software Quality
Mon, 2009-01-19 22:22 — Jim Highsmith
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Level: Practicing
Traditional development emphasizes “following a plan with minimal changes,” whereas agile stresses “adapting successfully to inevitable changes.” If agility is delivering customer value by being flexible, then how can measuring agile performance by adherence to schedule, cost, and scope be valid? We need to modify project success measures in order to build effective agile organizations. The session will build a case for changing performance measurement from the traditional Iron Triangle of cost, schedule, and scope to an Agile Triangle that focuses on value, quality, and constraints.
Process/Mechanics
Presentation with adequate time for questions and answers.
Learning outcomes
- Need to change performance measurements for wide agile adoption.
- The problems with the traditional Iron Triangle: scope, schedule, cost.
- Definition of quality, both intrinsic and extrinsic (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance).
- New thoughts on performance measurement: Beyond Budgeting: How Managers Can Break Free from the Annual Performance Trap, by Jeremy Hope and Robin Fraser, and Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations, by former Harvard Business School professor Rob Austin.
- An exploration into customer value, current and future.
- Why technical quality is so important for future value.
- The components of a new measurement framework, the Agile Triangle: Value, Quality, Constraints.
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