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Virtually
Agile
by Astro Sabre
(read about it at: http://www.slnn.com/article/drdobbs-thursday-sept20/)
the powerpoint or pdf version
The pace of change in the Internet is
fast. That's a "no-brainer" - I know that most people involved in
the latest technologies understand this, the question is: How do we
deal with the rapid change and quick turnaround ? It's not easy. Our
users aren't going to "go away" and come back in two months when
we've finally implemented some new
feature or glitzy object. Users of virtual worlds like Second Life
are perhaps even more demanding; expecting an even greater rate of
change.
These ever increasing expectations have placed new demands on the
world of traditional Software development; forcing changes in how
they develop, test and deploy new software systems. The term "Agile"
refers to a mindset change in how we, as software engineers, go
about our work. Agile implies an incremental approach to development
that, rather than a step-by-step approach to the traditional
development cycle, we do a little of everything each step of the
way
in an effort to become more responsive to change and the
fast-paced world in which we operate.
In this presentation I will discuss what it means to be Agile and
how we have adopted these methodology's as we continue to evolve and
support one of Second Life Islands at IBM, the Virtual Branch
Office. I'll discuss how we manage change in this fast paced world,
using remote development teams that (sometimes) have little to no
understanding of what Second Life is.
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