Second Agile Finland seminar

September 8, 2005 by Artem Marchenko

On the 7th of September I was visiting the Nokia Research Center in Helsinki, where the Second Agile Finland seminar was hosted.

The popularity of the Agile methods among the software developers is growing all over the world. My first university degree was focused on the ways of constructing large software systems. So I've been always curious about different trends in the design methodologies. I could not miss a chance to discover more about this area.

The presentations were very impressive. What particularly excited me was the great amount of statistical and historical background presented by Craig Larman from Valtech. You all know, that "waterfall" is a devastating way to go. It was amazing to discover, that it was considered harmful from the very first time it was mentioned (!). But not so many readers of the article, where the waterfall was introduced and thoroughly described bothered themselves to read to the part, where it was criticized and iterative methods were offered instead.

2nd and 3rd presentations were devoted to the success stories about using Scrum methodology  - lightweight iterative way to design software. It proved to be really simple, controllable and effective.
If you want to improve the software development at your company, have a look at Scrum. I will definitely try using some elements of it - its backlog and burndown chart seem to be very simple and at the same time effective and even fun tools to use.

Craig Larman starting the seminar

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