Continuing this series on the Eclipse Development Process and how other Agile practices like Scrum + XP can be used, we tackle a bit of the project management aspect. For a complete overview of Scrum, I highly recommend reading Mike Cohn's introduction to Scrum. Scrum itself does not go into the technical practices, as it focuses only on managing the project. These are light weight practices and cover just enough process.
The image is a very high level overview of the process. The key is repeating the same steps every iteration period. Updating the plan and backlock as you go. The Scrum process with a little bit of XP can greatly increase the reliability, quality and deliverables that you produce. With a little tweaking where necessary it fits very well within the overall Eclipse Development Process. You have choices beyond the Eclipse Project's Development Process. It is my hope that the Eclipse Architecture Council will start to document other processes that projects use to deliver their code within the overall Eclipse Development Process.
Eclipse Development Process: Project Management - Scrum
Posted by David Carver
in Wednesday, May 6, 2009
About Me
- David Carver
- My technical interests include XML, agile development, open source projects, and improving business to business standards development. At Eclipse.org I serve on the Architecture Council, and I'm a committer on the WTP Source Editing project focusing on XPath 2.0, XSLT, XML, and DTD development. I also help with the WTP Incubator VEX, XQuery, and RelaxNG development. View my linkedin profile.
Intellectual Cramps by David Carver is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at intellectualcramps.blogspot.com.
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Hi,
In theory SCRUM can work well. However from a project management perspective it is often a nightmare. The reason being few know how to define project scope. This then causes scope creep with the eventual result of project failure.
Unless you have written an accurate project scope statement in the project initiation document you will spend you entire time on the project dealing with project management scope and that really is a thankless task.
I have successfully used SCRUM before, and will continue to use it. But scope needs to be tightly defined, the business stakeholders stopped from adding in new functionality and each sprint properly timeboxed.
Regards
Susan de Sousa
Site Editor www.my-project-management-expert.com
@Susan, I definitely agree, but this isn't just a problem with Scrum, it's a problem with any management practice. Mike Cohn discusses dealing with scope and scale.
However, I think SCRUM allows you to deal with changing scope in a more efficient manner than trying to make it ridgid. Requirements change, SCRUM and other agile methods can help you deal with those changes.
It's not a silver bullet, but I think it can work well for open source projects. Agile Estimating and Planning is a must read by anybody that is considering SCRUM, as it helps define the boundaries and provides information on dealing with these issues.