Jim's Pages => Story Process => Agile Methodologies
"Agile" is a term that a group of methodology experts applied to the common threads among their methods. All seek to lower the time and money invested in methodology and focus instead on delivering working software. They accept that change during the life of a project is inevitable, so they learn to adjust efficiently and do not try to banish change through exhaustive up-front planning. Agile is a good word, because they strive to be nimble in moving quickly and responding to change. They are a tad hard on prescriptive methods like RUP some times. The opposite of agile would be what ... clumsy? awkward? slow?
To be fair, RUP is designed to be customized, and Rational will tell you that almost everything in XP could be a valid customization of RUP. The big sticking point is that Grady Booch doesn't believe in emergent architecture unless you have Kent Beck on your team. Grady says it works for Kent because Kent has every architecture that ever worked in his head [presumably on index cards] and effortlessly pulls out the right one. The rest of us have to work at architecture.
| Agile Methods & eXtreme Programming | |
| EmbracingChangeWithXP | A super Kent Beck introduction. Kent invented XP, maybe not the first agile method but the first to get huge attention, largely due to Kent's aggressive - ok eXtreme - style. |
| eXtremeProgramming.org | Excellent introduction to XP, directed reading through process charts. |
| XProgramming.com | Ron Jeffries home. Ron was there with Kent as XP evolved and has been process coach on other teams. Articles, book reviews, essays, etc. |
| AlistairCockburn | Alistair has done real-world reviews of many teams and methods. His site has numerous articles and essays, with a focus on people and social interactions that make teams work. He treats all agile methods fairly, and synthesizes them all into his own family of methods called Crystal. |
| WikiWikiWeb | A wild free-for-all of opinion and discussion. Much of the expression of XP evolved here as Kent Beck tried to explain what he was doing and others asked questions or challenged him. Set aside some time to get lost here. |
| The Agile Alliance | Impressive list of members, not much content yet. |
| AgileModeling | Scott Ambler site on modeling. Has links to his books and papers on OO, data modeling, RUP, etc. |
| AgileSoftwareDevelopment | Robert Martin talks about agile methods and a lot more about what makes good OO. |
| AgileSoftwareDevelopment | Alistair Cockburn talks about agile methods. You'd think two such smart guys could come up with two book titles between them. |
| Rational Unified Process | |
| RUP
in One Page RUP in Two Pages RUP in Three Pages |
Gary Evans has put together three versions of his thoughts on iterative development. The long one was published by Rational, so it has some credibility. |
| Use Cases | |
| Writing Effective Use Cases | The best use case advice ever by Alistair Cockburn. |
I started to put Highly Recommended next to a couple of these, but realized it would be all of them. Try them all in roughly the order shown. Do not miss the WikiWikiWeb!