Some Future Software Engineering Opportunities and Challenges

Software technology and project management leaders from all of its major sites were brought together to architect a corporate information framework and develop a corporate architected agile process approach. The resulting Scrum of Scrums approach was successfully used in a collocated pilot project to create the new information framework while maintaining continuity of service in their existing operations.

Based on the success of this pilot project, the team members returned to their sites and led similar transformational efforts. Within three years, they had almost 100 Scrum teams and 1000 software developers using compatible and coordinated architected-agile approaches. The effort involved their customers and marketers in the effort. Expectations were managed via the pilot project. The release management approach included a 2–12 week architecting Sprint Zero, a series of 3–10 one-month development Sprints, a Release Sprint, and 1–6 months of beta testing; the next release Sprint Zero overlapped the Release Sprint and beta testing. Their agile Scrum approach involved a tailored mix of eXtreme Programming (XP) and corporate practices, 6–12 person teams with dedicated team rooms, and global teams with wiki and daily virtual meeting support working as if located next door. Figure 1 shows this example of the Architected Agile approach.