RE: Waterfall and Dr. Winston Royce

I suspect documentation would be critical to a $23M project and that
it's easy to see how 1000 pages of *documents* get produced. However,
I'm talking about after-the-fact documents not upfront specs. On a
project of that size there are going to be many groups each proceeding
in their own agile way (we hope) but all the work of all teams (and all
500 programmers) will not get "continuously integrated" into one unit.
There will be some after the fact documents written ("here's how to use
the API we discussed") and such.  

Alistair Cockburn really helped me see the light about Ken's point below
that face-to-face communication is so much better than written. I
actually like written communication--it's nice and safe, easy to archive
and prove what was agreed to. However, face to face communication is
multi-modal: you've got the words, the person's body language, the tone
of voice, timing, etc. It's also bidirectional--You are giving me
feedback as I speak (should I speed up because you get my point? Go over
it in more detail? Etc) I think about the first distributed team I
managed and how I had to beg them to stop sending email and pick up the
phone because things were getting misinterpreted. The two groups came
together via an acquisition and they hated each other (prior companies
were competitors). The slight misstep in an email turned ugly fast. That
never happened when the individuals met in person or even via phone.
Think about how hard it is to get across things like sarcasm in an email
(or any written document) and you want to stick with face-to-face after
that.

I don't think there's a hard number of pages we can point to and say
"that's no longer agile". 

Here's an interesting bit of math though that shows that if the $23
million project was managed via Scrum it could end up with 1000 pages.
Let's assume 200 people on the project for 12 months. 200 people would
be roughly 25 scrum teams. Each month each scrum team produces a sprint
backlog (a list of "requirements" they'll fulfill that sprint). That's
13 sprints/year times 25 teams or 325 individual sprints. If each sprint
kept it's sprint backlog (for any of a variety of reasons) and one page
summarizing the results of the sprint and one other page we'd have 975
pages!!

-Mike

1 page x 100 x 12



-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Schwaber [mailto:ken.schwaber@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 4:10 PM
To: scrumdevelopment@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [scrumdevelopment] Waterfall and Dr. Winston Royce

Whenever documentation is used instead of face-to-face communication, it
is
a chance for misunderstanding and failure to communicate. Nobody writes
or
models precisely enough to include all possible details, and there is
the
chance for moving forward incorrectly. Not to mention the wasted effort
writing something that is going to go out of date the moment the first
change comes in (unless you prohibit changes, not always a good idea
with
changing requirements and complex technology). So the only documentation
that I like is work-in-progress, used to think through an idea,
documentation UNLESS the documentation will be used by others to create
a
vision (marketing), operate the system, or user documentation. 1000
pages of
spec is just asking for trouble.
Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul [mailto:horked_noodle@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 6:03 PM
To: scrumdevelopment@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [scrumdevelopment] Waterfall and Dr. Winston Royce


Kidding aside, what is the real take on the 1000 page
spec?
Dr. Royce said a 1000 page spec is appropriate and
David said it's reasonable, but isn't this totally
wrong approach to agile?
Why spec so much?
I loathe the waterfall methodology.  We have one
manager trying to push it at my company.  He's winning
the battle.

--- Ken Schwaber <ken.schwaber@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Great. Where do I apply?
> Ken
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Cohn
> [mailto:mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 5:54 PM
> To: scrumdevelopment@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: [scrumdevelopment] Waterfall and Dr.
> Winston Royce
>
>
> According to
>
http://woodrow.mpls.frb.fed.us/research/data/us/calc/
>
> $5 million in 1970 is $23M today
> and
> Ken should be making $55,515 a year.
>
> --Mike
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ken Schwaber [mailto:ken.schwaber@xxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 3:18 PM
> To: scrumdevelopment@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: [scrumdevelopment] Waterfall and Dr.
> Winston Royce
>
> Let's see. In 1970 I was being paid $12,000 a year
> by the University of
> Chicago. At the same markup (factor of 30), I should
> be making $360,000
> per
> year. Who wants to contribute to the cause??
> Ken
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David J. Anderson
> [mailto:netherby_uk@xxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 5:12 PM
> To: scrumdevelopment@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [scrumdevelopment] Waterfall and Dr.
> Winston Royce
>
>
> What would $5MM be in today's money? My guess is
> around $150MM.
>
> I'd say a 1000 page specification for a $150MM
> project
> would be decidedly agile.
>
> David
> --
> David Anderson
> http://www.uidesign.net/
> The Webzine for Interaction Designers
>
> --- "Ken Schwaber <ken.schwaber@xxxxxxxxxxx>"
> <ken.schwaber@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Documentation - Dr. Royce, "My own view is quite a
> lot...the first
> rule of managing software development is ruthless
> enforcement of
> documentation requirements ... Management of
> software
> is simply
> impossible without a very high degree of
> documentation." Dr. Royce
> indicates that a 1000 page spec document is
> appropriate for a $5m
> project, mostly because "a verbal record is too
> intangible."
>
>
>
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=====
==Paul

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