Agile development in a team of one
December 11, 2010
The other day at work we were discussing something that I expect the majority of developers feel. When working on your personal projects, you never seem to finish anything. Fortunately one of the guys came up with an answer that he used to get his app out of the door: Do what you do at work, use agile!
It seems he isn’t the only one, a quick search turned up a few related posts:
- Doing Agile in a Team of One
- Agile programming works for the solo developer
- What Aspects of Agile Software Development are Working for Soloists?
- Agile Methods Specifically taylored to working solo?
One of the things to bear in mind with agile is that you should be pragmatic about it, don’t follow everything by the book but do what works for you. There isn’t really any point in having a standup by yourself, however it is probably a good idea to be clear what your targets for the day are.
I’m going to try this with my next project, a rewrite of Tweeted Links (that I have been procrastinating about for a few months). Thinking about it, I guess agile methodologies could be used for all sorts of projects, not just developing software. Maybe I’ll use it for my next DIY task?