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Re: Agile Project Management

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Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> > Lew wrote:
> >> Arved Sandstrom wrote:
> >>> I don't think the OP meant ~800 person *project*.
> >>>
> >>> Once we start getting into these examples I'd like to see a clear
> >>> understanding of what numbers are involved in what roles on what pieces.
> >>> I can think of examples from my own experience where a software
> >>> development team of maybe a dozen or fifteen folks (developers, team
> >>> lead, technical architect, PM, QA/QC types etc) fell into the following
> >>> slots:
> >>>
> >>> 1. as the only software development team in a small (<30 people) product
> >>> company;
> >>>
> >>> 2. as one of several similar sized teams in a ~100 person IT shop in a
> >>> small/mid-sized (several thousand people) services organization. Each
> >>> team working independently on their own IT projects;
> >>>
> >>> 3. As the only team working on a specific product in a large (10,000+
> >>> persons) IT company. Dozens upon dozens of other teams, many larger,
> >>> some smaller. But this team is insular and works on one thing.
> >>>
> >>> In these 3 examples mentioning the size of the organization (~25, ~2000,
> >>> ~25000) is irrelevant.
> >>>
> >>> You're absolutely right, though, Patricia: for an 800-person *project*
> >>> you sure would want clean interfaces. Myself I don't think that adopting
> >>> agile is either going to help you or hinder you in achieving that good
> >>> architecture; either you know what you're doing or you don't.
> >>
> >> If you have structured an 800-person project in this sense, not
> >> decomposed
> >> into 5- to 12-person autonomous projects, then either you don't know what
> >> you're doing or you don't.
> >
> > If would put it the exact opposite if a 800 person project is split
> > into 80 autonomous projects of 10 persons, then the management it
> > totally clueless.
> 
> Imagine some autonomous web UI projects choosing:
> - PHP
> - Struts
> - JSF
> and some autonomous persistence projects choosing:
> - Oracle with SP's
> - DB2 with Hibernate

Full communication between each member of a team requires geometric 
increase in communication bandwidth with team size. Autonomy, within a 
shared framework as you aptly point out, is a necessity for such a large 
organization to function effectively.

In practice it works out all right that one team chooses PHP and another 
JSF, or as in my experience, one programmer C and another Fortran. What's 
the harm? Where teams must share a common resource, say that choice 
between Oracle and DB2 you describe, one of those small teams could be the 
database team. It would then function autonomously to serve the needs of 
the other teams, the database team's clients.

Surely you don't profess that 800 people on a team should work as a single 
unit? That is a proven antipattern. You have to break that large a group 
into manageable sizes, and those smaller groups must have autonomy. 
However, not to the /reductio ad absurdum/ point you mention. Analogously, 
you and I have autonomy in our posts to this newsgroup, yet we work within 
a common framework of the English language. Autonomy is not synonymous 
with isolation.

-- 
Lew

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Agile Project Management Iqra Educational Portal <iqraeducationalportal@gmail.com> - 2012-02-08 22:51 -0800
  Re: Agile Project Management Lionel <lionelv@none.com> - 2012-02-09 21:53 +1000
    Re: Agile Project Management markspace <-@.> - 2012-02-09 09:45 -0800
      Re: Agile Project Management Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-02-09 14:09 -0800
        Re: Agile Project Management Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2012-02-09 20:24 -0400
          Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-11 18:09 -0500
        Re: Agile Project Management Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-02-10 09:03 -0800
        Re: Agile Project Management Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2012-02-11 00:25 +0000
          Re: Agile Project Management Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2012-02-10 22:32 -0400
            Re: Agile Project Management Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-02-10 18:35 -0800
  Re: Agile Project Management Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-02-09 09:45 -0800
  Re: Agile Project Management simplicity <stella_pigeon@live.ca> - 2012-02-10 08:26 -0800
    Re: Agile Project Management Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2012-02-10 23:28 +0100
      Re: Agile Project Management Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-02-10 15:40 -0800
        Re: Agile Project Management Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-02-10 16:22 -0800
          Re: Agile Project Management Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm@dimnakorr.com> - 2012-02-11 01:04 -0600
            Re: Agile Project Management Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-02-11 12:23 -0800
            Re: Agile Project Management eric@invalid.com (EricF) - 2012-02-12 05:17 +0000
          Re: Agile Project Management Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2012-02-12 14:52 +0100
          Re: Agile Project Management Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-02-13 11:33 -0800
    Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-11 18:05 -0500
      Re: Agile Project Management Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2012-02-11 23:46 +0000
        Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-11 18:58 -0500
          Re: Agile Project Management Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2012-02-12 15:46 +0000
            Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-12 10:58 -0500
      Re: Agile Project Management simplicity <stella_pigeon@live.ca> - 2012-02-11 22:43 -0800
        Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-12 09:19 -0500
          Re: Agile Project Management Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-02-12 07:08 -0800
            Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-12 11:11 -0500
            Re: Agile Project Management Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2012-02-12 12:12 -0400
              Re: Agile Project Management Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-02-12 09:00 -0800
                Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-12 12:06 -0500
                Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-12 13:13 -0500
                Re: Agile Project Management Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-02-12 12:55 -0800
                Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-12 16:29 -0500
                Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-12 16:35 -0500
                Re: Agile Project Management Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-02-12 17:04 -0800
                Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-16 21:28 -0500
                Re: Agile Project Management Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-02-17 02:15 -0800
          Re: Agile Project Management Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2012-02-12 11:43 -0400
            Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-12 11:03 -0500
              Re: Agile Project Management Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2012-02-12 13:25 -0400
                Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-12 13:34 -0500
            Re: Agile Project Management Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm@dimnakorr.com> - 2012-02-12 11:55 -0600
        Re: Agile Project Management eric@invalid.com (EricF) - 2012-02-13 04:38 +0000
          Re: Agile Project Management simplicity <stella_pigeon@live.ca> - 2012-02-14 08:04 -0800
            Re: Agile Project Management Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-02-14 08:50 -0800
              Re: Agile Project Management Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm@dimnakorr.com> - 2012-02-14 11:11 -0600
                Re: Agile Project Management Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-02-14 09:17 -0800
            Re: Agile Project Management Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-02-16 21:26 -0500

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