Microsoft have embraced agile! Or, at least, they've built scrum-like management and control into their Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System.
If you're a MS development shop then it looks promising - it integrates iterative/incremental development across the MS toolset, it promises integrated, end-to-end management reporting from a single database, and it does it all in one place.
There's something missing though. If you take a look at a sneak preview of the MS agile frame work (via David Anderson) it's clear that the process is iterative/incremental, which is the "heart" of agile, but where's the "soul"?
I've seen several attempts at iterative/incremental fail because they didn't get the "soul". One e-commerce project, for example, designed and built, from scratch, one web page per iteration. But, of course, on the 2nd page they realised they had to change the first page, which they hadn't planned on, and by the 10th of 30 pages, they were hacking the whole thing to death, trying to paint themselves out of the corner. Another 6 month iterative/incremental project took 12 months to clean up once it was released because they didn't ensure each increment was potentially shippable and the product ended up buggy as hell.
But hey, this product is in the early stages. These people are clever. They know that their product will only be successful if their customers succeed by using it.
I just hope they don't bollocks it up. If they do a good job then they - more than any other organisation or person - can help us "average" folk build better software, more predictably - and in the long run, the agile branding won't make a lot of difference. But if they bollocks it up, then they'll take the agile brand down the toilet with them.
Hope they do a good job.
