Thursday, April 10, 2014

Disciplined Agile Manifesto? Good but not what is needed...

Scott Ambler has posted his/DAD's updated Agile Manifesto at http://disciplinedagiledelivery.wordpress.com/disciplinedagilemanifesto/

It is indeed an improvement, widening the viewpoint and scope of what is involved in delivery of solutions... and yet, it does not deal with the nature of its objective, the 'consumable solution'. At some point there will be diminishing returns on the ability to deliver the best solution. Ninety percent of the cost related to a solution is incurred after it is delivered. The ability to deal with changing requirements after delivery is more important than before delivery, and yet software is delivered that deals with the moment, and the problem is that changing it after delivery takes too much time and effort.

I have said this before, but what we need more than agile solution delivery is agile solutions; solutions that are designed to accept change without needing to make changes to the solutions themselves. Business process management, Business Rules Management, mix-and-match services. All this out there, but does not get the profile it deserves.

So who wants to help me write an Agile Solution Manifesto? "we prefer configuration over software maintenance..." No, we demand configuration over software maintenance.  Who's with me?

Friday, March 21, 2014

Man, I have been really busy for the last 12 months

Man, I have been really busy for the last 12 months... I worked my last gigs with IAG Consulting, and then went independent to contract at one of the big 5 Canadian banks. It was for 6 months, been renewed, and seems possible a few more extensions will be offered.

I do miss the variety of engagements I had at IAG Consulting over the previous 5 years, and would love to do it again sometime, but a few changes in my needs led to the more traditional contract. That said, it is a great project I am on, to completely revamp how customers are treated when they come into a branch for one product and are helped to look at other complementary products and services for a better overall support of their financial needs. It is a big project , even for this bank, with more BAs in one place and time than I have ever seen before, with the project broken into components that are all being analyzed and designed in parallel.My role is primarily coordination across the components, and as single point of contact to many other stakeholders in the bank. I have been dealing with and learning from people in legal, compliance, privacy, internal controls, anti-money laundering and more.

So that is my past year in a few sentences. I think I will be posting more often over the coming months, probably more about my favourite combination of process, data, rules, services and such.

Cheers for the moment.

About Me

Ontario, Canada
I have been an IT Business Analyst for 25 years, so I must have learned something. Also been on a lot of projects, which I have distilled into the book "Cascade": follow the link to the right to see more.