Musing 1

http://www.cio.com/article/3021336/leadership-management/how-to-improve-productivity-with-agile.html

In the article “How to Improve Productivity with Agile”, Bruce Harpham mentions agile approach as the future of software development and other industries. He claims that agile approach, which provides better communication, can improve the effectivity and productivity of IT staffs in completing their work. According to Bruce, the new method enables face to face communication between development team members, which results in a more efficient and more effective work flow. As the result, the failure rate decreases and the practice becomes popular within many major companies.

 The author then provides an example where agile approach yields a better result than offshoring. In his example of Arntz, the company has experienced significant increase in term of productivity after changing to agile approach. With the new emphasis on face to face communication, the firm can reduce the time cost for communication and boost the project speed.

In addition, Bruce says that global development teams will have trouble applying agile approach due to the difference in individuals’ cultures. To deal with the difficulty, those teams need to split their projects into smaller pieces to manage. After that using feedback and adjusting the process will be the key for success.

In conclusion, the author claims that agile approach is the trend for software development; therefore, all organizations should utilize it. In order to effectively apply the new method, each firms must identify the challenges, generate new ideas, as well as use agile method to experiment those ideas.

This article is very interesting since it relates to our class discussion of history and value of agile software development. The article proves that agile approach is an outstanding method that we need to consider when conducting a software development project. Moreover, Bruce points out some challenges we may face against when trying to experiment the new technique. Using the knowledge gained in class as well as the new information from the article, we, MIS students, can better analyze this new trend.

This information is very useful for us as MIS professionals. It is important that MIS student know the new techniques and trends to apply them in the near future. Our technology world is changing every single day. We must keep our knowledge up to date to be productive and efficient as workplace