The Menlo Software Factory Process

Agile Software Development

Agile software development is best defined as being able to do two things:

• Add features in any order
• Release any Iteration

The Menlo Software Factory Process meets this definition of agile, presenting you a process that is responsive to business needs and the real business challenges you face.

Why Agile?

A Standish Group study of over 30,000 software development projects reports that over two thirds of the projects experience major struggles and over one quarter fail outright. The typical reaction is to invent a more complex and rigid process. The best answers lie in doing just the opposite. To understand why you must understand the real context for developing software.  The context is "an accelerated technological society" influenced by Moore’s Law, Metcalfe’s Equation, Disruptive Technology and continuous change. We must understand this context to develop software successfully.

Because The Menlo Software Factory Process is agile it works with, not against, the nature of developing software in an accelerated society. The Menlo Software Factory Process is specifically designed to produce useful software in a rapidly changing competitive environment.

Business Interests

Our process puts business interests at the top.  We close the gap between project sponsors and developers through a highly defined set of practices.  The Software Factory Process specifically recognizes four distinct specialty teams required to build an effective delivery team. The specialties teams are:

• Voice of the Stakeholders – Business persons representing internal business goals
• Voice of the Users – Analysts representing end user goals and abilities
• Coaching – The factory manager running the process
• Development – The programmers writing the software

Best Practices

Our specialty teams are trained to leverage best practices from multiple sources including:

• The Rational Unified Process
• Interaction Design
• Six Sigma
• Extreme Programming

Three of the specialties have team members trained in skills outside of programming. Only the development team hires programmers.  Visit us and see:

• How we successfully develop software Iteratively.
• How we manage aggressive software release cycles. 

Scalable Teams

The specialty teams work together in The Software Factory united by a common, simple set of management and development practices. 

These practices enable projects and entire software factories to be rapidly scaled up and down in size. Factories can handle projects of any size and, of course, can readily handle multiple projects simultaneously. Projects with important deadlines can seamlessly have new team members added and make them immediately productive. Likewise, factory practices prevent projects from becoming held hostage by one or two technical specialists, since the whole team will be familiar with the code.

Further Information

If you are interested in learning more details about how The Menlo Software Factory runs consider attending our one-day seminar "The Menlo Software Factory's Agile Explained."
 

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