I’ve had the privilege of watching the trend of software development practices change over time addressing ever-evolving technologies and business realities, writes Joel Semeniuk. Here are his 7 predictions for agile.
...read moreArticles Tagged 'IT'
-
-
Brisbane North Institute of TAFE (BNIT) announced it has partnered with SAP Australia to help address IT skills shortages in Queensland.
...read more -
John Grill, recently retired chief executive of international engineering and project services company WorleyParsons, has donated $20 million to the University of Sydney for a project management initiative: the John Grill Centre for Project Leadership.
...read more -
Throughout the project management discipline, earned value has become synonymous with progress reporting. Guy Wilmington suggests, however, that it is impractical for use in IT projects and proposes alternative means for gauging and reporting progress of tasks/deliverables for IT projects.
...read more -
This reflective report by Beatrice Ngo explores the topics of ‘reflection’ and ‘learning through reflection’ within the context of the project environment within one of Australia’s major telecommunications companies.
...read more -
There are many benefits to adopting active, ongoing reflection during projects, in particular in Agile software development. Phi Bang Nguyen investigates the impact of reflection and proposes a way to create a baseline for communication and synthesis of ideas.
...read more -
Learning through Reflection while implementing an Agile software development methodology
This reflective report explores the topics of ‘reflection’ and ‘learning through reflection’ within the context of the project environment within one of Australia’s major telecommunications companies (hereby referred to as ‘The Company’).The project was to develop and deploy a comprehensive new software development methodology within The Company; a methodology based on the Information Technology paradigm of ‘Agile Software Development’.
Implementing Agile methodology within The Company involved:
—Industry and vendor engagement to develop a comprehensive ‘best practice’ Agile methodology and framework which also met the specific needs of The Company.
—Training for staff within the large Information Technology department of The Company.
—The implementation of new metrics and measures to reflect on, and validate the success of, the new methodology.The Agile methodology implemented within The Company incorporates a significant amount of reflective practice in the form of ‘retrospectives’. A retrospective is “a meeting held by the project team at the end of a project or process to discuss what was successful about the project or time period covered by that retrospective, what could be improved, and how to incorporate the successes and improvements in future iterations or projects”. The retrospective process:
—Is an example of Social Learning.
—Is an example of Experiential Learning.
—Is not an example of Problem-Based Learning.The Company achieved several benefits through the use of reflective practice in the form of these retrospectives – such as:
—Increased trust within the project team.
—More effective reflection on work performance.
—More effective project debriefings.Through reflection over time, The Company learnt various lessons in terms of ‘common ailments’ regarding their Agile projects, and suitable cures for each issue.
‘Learning through reflection’ could have improved the outcome of this project in various ways, such as:
—Allowing the project team to achieve ‘double-loop learning’.
—Allowing team members to learn from their failures.
—Slowing the pace of learning, allowing proper comprehension.
—Allowing ‘deep’ learning to take place.Author: Beatrice Ngo
...read more
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney) -
Reflective Practices in Agile development of the On-Demand Virtual Lab
The focus for this paper is to investigate reflective practices in an Agile software development project – The On-Demand Virtual Lab. It aims to understand how Agile development has been used in a technically complex ‘proof-of-concept’ project.
This paper uses a systems thinking approach to understand the components of this On-Demand Virtual Lab. Both using a hard systems approach to understand the technical issues, as well as a soft systems approach to understand the personal issues.
The investigation found that there were weaknesses in understanding the complexity and length of this project. There was a lack of support from management, as well as a lack of knowledge transfer.Finally, the paper presents two reflective tools, known as Agile-Jazz and Agile-ECG that have been demonstrated to be beneficial for teams involved in complex projects. Agile-Jazz is an enhanced management structure, which brings stakeholders together to reflect and understand the problems, and seek solutions together. Agile-ECG classifies the reflection into Emotions, Cognition and Growth – providing a convention to reflection and aiding discussion within the team.
Author: Phi Bang Nguyen
...read more
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney) -
Eliminating ‘Us and Them’: Making IT and the Business One by Steve Romero is a solid treatment on the effective governance of IT. This book is excellent for diagnosing governance health in IT and would be a terrific primer for those moving into executive roles with a governance accountability for IT, writes reviewer Ian Sharpe.
...read more -
Armed with savvy change agents, smart organisations leverage their project managers’ skills to manage the inevitable shifts in the business landscape. IT change agents need to call on their other essential business skills: business savvy, communications, critical thinking, financial know-how and even coaching and mentoring.
...read more