Blame it on Agile
Microsoft released newest version of Visual Studio development environment few weeks ago. I was more than happy to start using the Visual Studio 2005 right after the release as the new IDE has been improved a lot since VS 2003. It now includes standard functionality that I have enjoyed in another IDEs for a long time (Refactoring, Unit tests etc.). On the side note it is giving me quite some headache as it crashes several times per day… Looking forward on the first service pack.
Therefore I got myself smiling when I read Eric Maino’s blog entry about the Visual Studio’s MQ release. Maino is Software Design Engineer for Test (SDET) on the Microsoft Visual C# team. He says that lesson that they learned from their latest three releases was that they weren’t “agile enough” and they were shipping too late. Why this makes me smile is that this is a by-the-book example of a statement from people using agile methods. I don’t remember the exact what book it was but it was written that team that uses agile methods can easily blame the methodology for software project delay or other failure. Either it is that they weren’t “agile enough” or they were “too agile” not to succeed.
I have also given a lot of interest into agile methods, especially to SCRUM and XP methodologies. But even though they provide handy practices and tactics it always comes down to the developers how good their software is and are you able to deliver it on time. Methodologies are here to make your ride more smoothly on the bumpy road of software development.