Re: Scrum and RUP

The following are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of
Object Mentor or anyone else for that matter. Or even mine as of yesterday or
tomorrow.

On Sunday, December 15, 2002, at 11:53:07 AM, Ken Schwaber wrote:

> Let us hypothesize that having a Scrum plug-in for RUP is an idea worth
> pursuing. Then I have the following questions:
> 1. How good was the effort at the XP plug-in. Does it help or hurt? Did the
> greater distribution cause the essence of XP to be more widely distributed,
> or did the translation of XP into RUP cause XP to lose it's "soul?"

The comments from Rational clearly did not reflect the soul. They do not get
"agile" in my opinion. Some of them seem to get the idea of doing more with
less, but the overall push of the company is to sell their services and to sell
Rose and such. With IBM, if they wind up at IBM, this will only become more true
in my opinion. Less process cannot become a goal of a company that wants to sell
more process-oriented products.

Their philosophy, again in my opinion, is based in large-systems experience,
old-style "up front" thinking, and a command and control orientation.

> 2. Given the meta model of a process within Rose, that is used to generate
> RUP, how can an agile process be effectively described? The models of
> processes that we used in our process management software always revolved
> around hierarchies or tasks, with the lowest level tasks having estimates,
> roles, inputs, outputs, techniques and task descriptions. And, of course,
> each of the roles, techniques, inputs, and outputs were further described.
> Is this type of metaphor appropriate for agile processes, or does this level
> of delineation lead to them being fodder for M/S project,for "hands-off"
> management, and for robotic tracking of plans while ignoring realities?

It is quite difficult to express XP inside the RUP. The issues revolve around
the fact that the RUP has "slots" which need filling in: some of these are roles
which must be reflected, and some are "artifacts" which need to be connected
back to the process.

> 3. If the first two questions are adequately addressed, what is our best way
> to proceed with the effort?

They will pay to have it done. If someone who really understands Scrum does not
help them, they will do it themselves or hire some hack to do it.

So it's almost a moral issue. My involvement with the RUP XP plugin was based on
my belief that it would be better with me than without me, and I think it is.
Even so, it is still a long way from expressing what XP is.

BTW, I didn't make a dime on it, and don't expect to. If I had my way, it would
not have happened. But if 'twere done, 'twere best done well.

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
The rules are ways of thinking, not ways to avoid thinking.


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