For the last 10 years, Atomic Object has been a pioneer in agile software development. During this decade, we have produced hundreds of projects for over 100 satisfied clients. Why so satisfied you might ask? Aside from our freshly popped popcorn, it’s because we consistently deliver high quality software in a highly predictable timeframe.
These attributes have not gone unnoticed. We have become known for this strong process that really produces great work, and it has become commonplace for customers to request agile training for their own development teams. We’ve done this training in the following two ways:
1.) The Traditional Approach
The traditional approach is what most people think of when they hear the word training. In this approach we identify the aspect of “agile” that the customer would like to learn about (i.e. testing, velocity tracking, simple design, pair programming, etc) and then craft a course that meets the request. These courses are usually week-long engagements that include hands on exercises. We have recently conducted a similar training in Baltimore.
Although these types of engagements are beneficial for companies, here at Atomic, we feel that there is an even better way to create a long-term sustainable change within an organization. This leads us to the second, preferred approach.
2.) The Integrated Approach
Integrated training is when we join the client’s development team for an extended engagement. These types of engagements generally last at least 3 months, which allows team members to internalize the concept, become comfortable with it, and then really apply it to the fullest extent – all under the guidance of experienced agile developers – and in their own code base. This approach commonly happens with companies that are trying to create a small agile team within a larger waterfall-centric organization. The approach here is to work directly with the client’s development team, creating software towards their current internal goals. During this time we also integrate our various agile practices. The beauty of this approach is that a team doesn’t have to take time off from development for training; instead, the training happens naturally while software is actually being created.
The main challenge that most clients face when adopting agile practices is not their willingness or ability, but rather, their organization’s ability to deal with the change. Being on the ground floor of this change allows us to innovate and modify process outputs to fit into the unique structure of the organization. An example of an innovation would be a modified burndown chart that more closely matches what the marketing department requires, or a tool that automatically generates high-level system requirements based on test output for the compliance department. We have found that these are the types of custom tweaks that are needed for a small agile team to be successful long-term within a larger organization.
In summary, integrated training is the preferred choice because:
- The client team continues to get real work done while they learn to be agile.
- Atomic helps customize agile process outputs to match the client’s organizational needs.
- Management’s greater buy-in (longer engagement) signals their dedication to the training effort.
- Better chance for long-term agile sustainability.
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