Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game

505 Pages·2006·3.795 MB·English

by  Cockburn, Alistair

AGILE SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
The Agile Software Development Series
Alistair Cockburn and Jim Highsmith, Series Editors
Agile software development centers on four values identified in the Agile Alliance’s
Manifesto:
• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan
The development of Agile software requires innovation and responsiveness, based on generating
and sharing knowledge within a development team and with the customer. Agile software
developers draw on the strengths of customers, users, and developers, finding just enough
process to balance quality and agility.
The books in The Agile Software Development Series focus on sharing the experiences of
such Agile developers. Individual books address individual techniques (such as Use Cases),
group techniques (such as collaborative decision making), and proven solutions to different
problems from a variety of organizational cultures. The result is a core of Agile best practices
that will enrich your experience and improve your work.
Titles in the Series:
Steve Adolph, Paul Bramble, Alistair Cockburn, and Andy Pols; Patterns for Effective Use
Cases;0201721848
Alistair Cockburn; Agile Software Development, Second Edition; 0321482751
Alistair Cockburn; Crystal Clear; 0201699478
Alistair Cockburn; Surviving Object-Oriented Projects; 0201498340
Alistair Cockburn; Writing Effective Use Cases;0201702258
Anne Mette Jonassen Hass; Configuration Management Principles and Practice; 0321117662
Jim Highsmith; Agile Software Development Ecosystems; 0201760436
Jim Highsmith; Agile Project Management;0321219775
Craig Larman; Agile and Iterative Development; 0131111558
Lars Mathiassen, Jan Pries-Heje, and Ojelanki Ngwenyama; Improving Software
Organizations; 0201758202
Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieck;Lean Software Development;0321150783
Jean Tabaka; Collaboration Explained;0321268776
Kevin Tate; Sustainable Software Development; 0321286081
For more information visit www.awprofessional.com/series/agile
AGILE SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
Second Edition
The Cooperative Game
Alistair Cockburn
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Cockburn, Alistair.
Agile software development : the cooperative game / Alistair Cockburn. -- 2nd ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-321-48275-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Computer software--Development. I. Title.
QA76.76.D47C634 2006
005.1--dc22
2006025802
Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc.
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ISBN 10: 0-321-48275-1
ISBN 13: 978-0-32-148275-4
Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at RR Donnelly in Crawfordsville, Indiana.
Third printing, October 2007
To Aidan and Eve
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
LIST OF STORIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
PREFACE TO 2ND EDITION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxi
0 UNKNOWABLE AND INCOMMUNICABLE 1
The Problem with Parsing Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Impossibility of Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Three Levels of Listening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
So, What Do I Do Tomorrow? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
0.1 UNKNOWABLE AND INCOMMUNICABLE: EVOLUTION 21
Communication and Shared Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
Shu-Ha-Ri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
CHAPTER 1 A COOPERATIVE GAME OF INVENTION AND COMMUNICATION 27
Software and Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Software and Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
A Second Look at the Cooperative Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
What Should This Mean to Me? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
CHAPTER 1.1 A COOPERATIVE GAME OF INVENTION AND COMMUNICATION:
EVOLUTION 47
The Swamp Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
Competition Within Cooperation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50
Other Fields as Cooperative Games. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52
Software Engineering Reconstructed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
vii
viii • CONTENTS
CHAPTER 2 INDIVIDUALS 65
Them’s Funky People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Overcoming Failure Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Working Better in Some Ways than Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Drawing on Success Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
What Should I Do Tomorrow? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
CHAPTER 2.1 INDIVIDUALS: EVOLUTION 99
Strategy Balancing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
CHAPTER 3 COMMUNICATION, COOPERATING TEAMS 105
Convection Currents of Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Jumping Communication Gaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Teams as Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Teams as Ecosystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
What Should I Do Tomorrow? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
CHAPTER 3.1 TEAMS: EVOLUTION 143
A Sample Office Layout Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
CHAPTER 4 METHODOLOGIES 147
An Ecosystem That Ships Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Methodology Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Methodology Design Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
XP under Glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Why Methodology at All? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
What Should I Do Tomorrow? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
CHAPTER 4.1 METHODOLOGIES: EVOLUTION 207
Methodologies versus Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Methodologies across the Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Process as Cycles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Describing Methodologies More Simply. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
CONTENTS • ix
CHAPTER 5 AGILE AND SELF-ADAPTING 217
Light but Sufficient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Agile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Becoming Self-Adapting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
What Should I Do Tomorrow? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
CHAPTER 5.1 AGILE AND SELF-ADAPTING: EVOLUTION 241
Misconstruing the Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .244
Evolution of the Agile Methodologies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .261
New Methodology Topics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .273
Persistent Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .290
Agile Outside Software Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .311
CHAPTER 6 THE CRYSTAL METHODOLOGIES 335
Shaping the Crystal Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Crystal Clear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Crystal Orange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Crystal Orange Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
What Should I Do Tomorrow? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
CHAPTER 6.1 THE CRYSTAL METHODOLOGIES: EVOLUTION 351
The Crystal Genetic Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .353
Crystal Clear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .358
Stretching Crystal Clear to Yellow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .361
APPENDIX A THE AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT MANIFESTO 367
The Agile Alliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
The Manifesto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
Supporting the Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
APPENDIX A.1 THE AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT MANIFESTO
AND THE DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE 379
The Agile Manifesto Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .381
The Declaration of Interdependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .384