It's More than Just Toys and Food: Leading Agile Development in an Enterprise-Class Start-Up

One of the myths of Agile Development is that selforganizing teams do not need direction. The agile development movement focuses primarily on programmers – programmers should do X, Y and Z, and everyone else should do whatever it takes to support the programmers. A fantastic start, since programmers are the people who actually build the organization’s product; however, few techniques are offered to the rest of the organization. The admonishment to managers instructing them to only provide “toys and food” [1] and buffer the team from external distractions implies that leaders in an agile environment should do less work, and be less involved with the team on a day-to-day basis, than in a more traditional environment. In fact a leader in an agile group must do more than he/she would in a more traditional environment and must be even more involved in the day-to-day activities of the team. The Sabrix development discipline has strong and deeply involved management as one of its key...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: AGILEDC
• Authors: Joseph A. Blotner
• Keywords: Agile Development, Agile Development Movement, AGILEDC 2003, Software Engineering, Team