| [epf-dev] Wednesday Release Planning Call |
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Hello everyone: After last week’s call, I was thinking more about what
I believe is necessary to include in the next release of OpenUP. In my
opinion a methodology does not survive and prosper based on its own merits, it
survives because there is a community. IMHO, XP and Scrum have taken off
because they are easy to get started with (although the ease of getting started
does not necessarily imply ease of use), they have charismatic champions
telling their audience what the audience wants to hear. There is a wide range
of supporting material including books and courses to help people get started
with these methods. If OpenUP is to survive and find its place in the hearts
and minds of developers then we need to focus on capturing people’s
imaginations. In this era of 10 second sound bites we need to do that quickly.
I would like to propose the following activities for general and overarching
issues: 1)
We need an OpenUP course – or more to the point,
course material we can spin into a half day tutorial or re-spin into a two day “hands
on” workshop. Something that not only introduced OpenUP but iterative
development. A possible course title is “Iterative Development with
OpenUP”. 2)
I think we need a version of OpenUP that is less
intimidating than the version we have at the moment. OpenUP is suppose to be
for small teams yet it has the appearance of a voluminous and complex process.
What if we created some kind of “abridged” version that reduced the
cognitive load on the early adopters? This version would not be maintained
as part of the composer. Rather, it would be more like a cheat sheet that
simply captured the essence, phase, iterations, work item list, focus on
architecture, risk management. A version that if a person took a half day
OpenUP tutorial they had at least a chance of making a positive change using
OpenUP. 3)
I also believe we need to strongly encourage and
support translation efforts. I know there was some interest in creating a
Russian translation of OpenUP, but I do not know what has happened since.
4)
A book? I was intrigued by the suggestion of creating a
“red book”. I don’t know if I can physically sequester myself
with a writing team, but I am willing to wager that we have enough material
between us to create a simple book. Perhaps “Post Agile Development with
OpenUP” These are just some thoughts I had for tomorrow’s
call. Look forward to chatting with you all… Steve |