Looking back at Agile Manifesto.
Really hard problems have nothing to do with hard science. Real hard problems is that it’s us writing, or managing the people who write, code. The problem is that it is us. If we’re problem, what can we do to fix it?
by Andy Hunt, Toolshed Technologies
Media Contact
Dana Hanzlik
Phone: 412-268-4793
E-mail: public-relations@sei.cmu.edu
Pittsburgh, Pa., March 19, 2012—The Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI) has announced the keynote speakers for the upcoming SEI Architecture Technology User Network (SATURN) 2012 Conference to be held May 7-11, 2012, at the St. Petersburg Bayfront Hilton Hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida. Three software engineering and software architecture thought leaders will keynote the SATURN 2012 Conference: Andy Hunt, co-founder of The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC, an Agile publishing and training company; Michael Stal, principal engineer at Siemens Corporate Research and Technologies; and Douglas C. Schmidt, professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University.
Michael Stal and Andy Hunt, two leading thinkers in the fields of software architecture and software engineering, will deliver keynote presentations at the SATURN 2012 conference. SATURN is the Software Engineering Institute’s annual conference devoted to software and systems architecture. SATURN 2012 will be held May 7-11, 2012 at the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Michael Stal is principal engineer at Siemens Corporate Research and Technologies. His main research topics address software architecture for distributed and/or embedded systems. He coaches projects within the various business units at Siemens and is in charge of educating the Siemens senior software architects. Stal earned a PhD from the University of Groningen where he has been appointed professor for software engineering. In addition, Stal co-authored the Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture (POSA) book series.
Andy Hunt is a programmer turned consultant, author, and publisher. Hunt was one of the 17 founders of the Agile Alliance and also one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto. He co-founded the Pragmatic Bookshelf, publishing award-winning and critically-acclaimed books for software developers. He also has authored award-winning and best-selling books, including The Pragmatic Programmer, co-written by Dave Thomas, and six other books, including the his latest, Pragmatic Thinking and Learning.
In line with the SATURN 2012 conference theme “Architecture: Catalyst for Collaboration,” both keynote speakers will explore how practitioners can collaborate effectively across geographical, cultural, and technical boundaries to solve system problems.
See the SATURN 2012 website in January 2012 for more details about the keynote addresses as well as the preliminary conference program.
I am a huge fan of Donald Reinertsen’s book The Principles of Product Development Flow. Reinertsen draws on a diverse set of disciplines including Lean manufacturing, economics, statistics, queuing theory, control engineering, and maneuver warfare to create a set of principles to guide the product-development process and improve product-development flow.
One principle in Reinertsen’s book is Principle E8, “The Principle of Small Decisions: Influence the Many Small Decisions.” Reinertsen describes this principle as follows:
We took a few minutes to chat with a few SATURN 2010 attendees about their personal reactions to what they heard during Jim Highsmith’s Keynote talk, “Architects: Anchors or Accelerators to Organizational Agility”.
SATURN 2010 / TECHdotMN field notes
by Jeff Pesek 5/19/10
Architecturally Focused Techniques for Managing System Evolution by William Koscho
Based on the premise that business strategy, process and units will inevitably change – the architect’s objectives are to: (a) understand/accept potential changes in the environment, (b) manage relationships between the environment and the architecture and (c) minimize the risk of the implementing change.
“Is this strategic change we want to invest in or is it arbitrary and therefore cost-sensitive?” Mr. Koscho asks in describing the internal thought process.
Posted in Architecture and Agile, Architecture-Centric Engineering, Architecture-Centric Practices, SATURN Conference
Tagged ADD, Agile Alliance, ATAM, attribute-driven design, documentation, non-functional requirements, SATURN 2010, SATURN Conference, software design, software development, system architecture, systems architecture
These are my notes from Jim Highsmith’s keynote at SATURN 2010. I hope that others who are here will add their notes in the comments below.
Jim Highsmith, Architects: Anchors or Accelerators to Organizational Agility
Philippe Kruchten introduces Highsmith as “the bridge-builder from Flagstaff, Arizona.”
Talk covers what architects can do to make their organizations more agile. It’s the business need that matters: what are the principles, based on the business needs for the system?
Posted in Architecture and Agile, SATURN Conference
Tagged Agile Alliance, SATURN 2010, SATURN Conference
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EDT
Cost: Free
Abstract
Agile development and software architecture are frequently seen as two divergent schools of thought or “camps.” Agile developers often refer to architecture as Big Design Upfront (BDUF) and may regard the architect’s major output as merely shelfware. Proponents of architecture-centric software development may see Agilists as undisciplined or short-sighted, engaged in endless rounds of refactoring that architectural foresight could have forestalled.
In reality, Agile development and software architecture practices are complementary. Focused attention on architectural concerns becomes critical as Agile development scales up to handle larger and more complex systems. Agile development’s focus on customer value, rapid feedback, and response to change can provide practices that help architects deal with ever more volatile environments and increasingly compressed delivery cycles.
In this webinar, we will take a journey to each camp to dispel misconceptions and discuss how Agilists and architects can learn from and benefit each other.
About the Speaker
Nanette Brown is a visiting scientist with the Software Engineering Institute’s Research, Technology and System Solutions Program and is a principal consultant with NoteWell Consulting. She is currently engaged in an SEI research project on “Communicating the Value of Architecting within Agile Development” as well as other activities focusing on architecture within an Agile context.
Previously, Nanette worked at Pitney Bowes Inc., most recently as director of architecture and quality management, where she was responsible for design and implementation of a customized SDLC that blended RUP and Agile practices. Nanette has presented at multiple industry conferences including SD Best Practices and Project World and the World Conference of Business Analysts on topics including facilitated iteration planning and using the SEI scenario-based approach to specify quality attributes.
Research discussed at WEUSE V: The 5th Workshop on End-User Software Engineering indicates that, in the US, there are about four times as many people who do programming at work (12 million) as there are professional programmers (3 million). Add in another 55 million of us who use spreadsheets and databases (and thus may also be considered to be doing programming) on the job, and that means there’s probably a lot of undependable, error-riddled software being created. As workshop participants noted: “When the software that end users create is not dependable, the people whose retirement funds, credit histories, e-business revenues, and even health and safety rely on decisions made using that software can face serious consequences.”
The workshop participants discussed end-user programming with a specific focus on the software engineering that is required to make it a more disciplined process, while still hiding the complexities of greater discipline from the end user. Proceedings from the workshop are available in a report at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/09sr015.cfm.
One approach reported on in the workshop: distributed cognition, advanced by Margaret Burnett et al. From the SEI report: “Thus, instead of trying to build systems that solve this type of problem: ‘What can the system figure out automatically so that users need not think too hard?’, [the] distributed cognition perspective is that the problem statement becomes: ‘How can end-user software engineering tools help end users think?’ “
Posted in Architecture and Agile
Tagged Agile Alliance, end user programming, software engineering
This is another post in the “From the Trenches” series about our research project on communicating the value of architecting within Agile development. I meant to post this earlier, but I’ve been in the trenches digging.
As Ipek Ozkaya discussed in our From the Trenches kickoff post, we are approaching our research on the value of architecture from the perspective of release planning. I am excited about this perspective because it moves the discussion of architecture’s value out of the realm of philosophy and into the realm of action and choice. As practitioners, we may talk to management and marketing and other decision makers about how valuable architecture is, and they may, in principle, agree. However, the real test of whether we’ve made the sale about architecture’s value is when the time comes to make investment choices, and that’s where release planning comes into play.
