Mark KromerTechnical Product Manager| Oracle CorpOviedo, Fl, United States
I am a big proponent of Agile methodology for software development teams, particularly those working on solutoins for internal enterprise development projects or software companies with development teams focused on different products, small enough to organize and form self-conducting Scrum teams and projects that could be completed within several sprint iterations.
Does anyone have practice in implementing Agile Scrum within very large projects that were planned for 1-2 years in duration with geographically dispersed teams with hundreds of project team members and participants?
I've been debating the merits as well as accepted tipping-point standards for size of projects that can fit well within an Agile methodology, in practice, NOT theory!
Would love to hear this forum's take on those ... Thanks! Mark Saving Changes...
I worked on a 1 year process and software improvement project back in 2001\2002 (i've worked on other scrum projects but that first one was the longest and most complex in terms of number of team members\fte\contractors\3rd parties\consultants) right as the Agile Manifesto was published. It wasn't strictly SCRUM because we DID forecast at the beginning as to timelines. We estimated on how many modules we thought we would have and then how many sprints we thought it would take us. The team wasn't super huge but we were dispersed through out the US. It worked really well though did require some re baselining as we went (based on what we learned from past sprints - we went in two week increments). At the end of the project, we ended up utilizing a hybrid of SDLC and project management frameworks.
I know that the waterfall SDLC is not sexy. Especially these days Everyone wants to be a SCRUM Maser... However, there are times where it makes sense to use it. If you are clear about your requirements and working with such a massive team (usually the larger the team, the less agile you are) - it might make more sense over the long run to follow the waterfall.
I'm curious to see what other feedback you get to this question and hope others will share their real life experiences.
