Agile software methodologies (associated with names like “Scrum” and “eXtreme Programming”) have historically been primarily adopted within small-team projects. They’ve tended to fare less well on larger projects.
Dean Leffingwell’s book “Scaling Software Agility: Best practices for large enterprises” is the most useful one that I’ve found, on the important topic of how best to apply the deep insights of Agile methodologies in the context of larger development projects. I like the book because it’s clear (easy to read) as well as being profound (well worth reading). I liked the book so much that I invited Dean to come to speak at various training seminars inside Symbian. We’ve learned a great deal from what he’s had to say.
As an active practitioner who carries out regular retrospectives, Dean keeps up a steady stream of new blog articles that capture the evolution of his thinking. Recently, he’s been publishing articles on “Agile architecture”, including a summary article that lists “Seven principles of agile architecture“:
- The teams that code the system design the system
- Build the simplest architecture that can possibly work
- When in doubt, code it out
- They build it, they test it
- The bigger the system, the longer the runway
- System architecture is a role collaboration
- There is no monopoly on innovation.
Dean says he’s working on an article that pulls all these ideas together. I’m looking forward to it!
dw2 
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