There are little doubt about the intrinsic value of agile practices: well applied by the right people, they do wonder, on the right problem. But are they always suited to the task? Software projects and software development organizations cover a wide spectrum. I will contend that most of the value of any software development practice depends on its context; and that Agility for an organization is not defined by simply embracing a labeled set of practices; nor even by a level of conformance to the agile manifesto. Agility should be defined relative to the value it brings to the business, namely the capacity of an organization to react and adapt faster than its environment can change. How agile an organization is, or can afford to be, will depend not on the practices alone, but on the context in which they are applied: how fit to that context are they. How do we define "context"? What elements or attributes of this context have a bearing on the selection of the set of practices an organization should adopt, and therefore how 'agile' it should strive to be? I'll share some experience of applying agile practices far from their sweet spot, leading to the concept of situated agile processes.

Biography:

Philippe Kruchten is professor of software engineering in the department of electrical and computer engineering of the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. He joined UBC in 2004 after a 30+ year career in industry, where he worked mostly in with large software-intensive systems design, in the domains of telecommunication, defense, aerospace and transportation. Some of his experience is embodied in the Rational Unified Process (RUP) whose development he directed from 1995 until 2003, when Rational Software was bought by IBM. RUP includes an architectural design method, known as “RUP 4+1 views”. Philippe’s current research interests still reside mostly with software architecture, and in particular architectural decisions and the decision process, as well as software engineering processes, in particular the application of agile processes in large and globally distributed teams. He is a senior member of IEEE CS, the cofounder of Agile Vancouver, and a Professional Engineer in BC.