Agile Structure and Week Three

With software development, there are basically two methodologies, waterfall, and Agile. In waterfall (also known as the linear-sequential life cycle model), every part of a project relies on a previous part of the project; everything builds on top of something else, like a cascade waterfall. It can be high risk, because if there is one problem, a part of the project way back may need to be completely rewritten. Agile is much more flexible, breaking the project into smaller and smaller projects until there are clear tasks for someone to do. Teams are basically self-sufficient and are able to plan their own iterations (aka sprints), which are like mini-quarters, typically less than a month in duration, where teams plan and meet their own goals (there are graphs and metrics watching the team and a dedicated team member watching the metrics called the scrum master). I will likely have a slide dedicated to this in my project, because Agile is really cool and decently complex, but at the same time simple.

I’m in effect shadowing an entire team and learning about those different roles. In my time here, I will have gotten to see the lifecycle of an entire sprint and the first two days of another, which is really cool. This is my last week at the company and now we’re trying to find little ways I can be a value-add, which is nerve-wracking because I don’t know very much in this space, and talking to people is scary, but also exciting because it’s new and a learning experience. On Thursday of the third week, I realized I had told them the wrong ending date in meetings; I told them the 29th when we had both agreed on ending the 23rd, and I had to rectify that in a one-on-one meeting with my supervisor. He was pretty chill about it and we set up an in-person lunch meeting with the team and a few other people for when I’m in Phoenix in late April/early May.

I’ve been facing a lot of technical difficulties and waiting on various permissions from the company, which took up a lot of week two. I got very well acquainted with the helpdesk and the process for asking for technical help in the corporate environment.