Author: Dot Tudor and George A. Walter
Date: 2006-07-10

Case Study: Agile Approach in a Traditional Organization

Abstract

Can Agile approaches be used successfully in large organizations, where traditional methods and high levels of governance are the norm?

Although the iterative, agile approaches have been seen to work well in small, flexible organizations, or on smaller projects, they frequently fall foul of the larger organization's need for governance, investment appraisal and control.

Formed in 1967, OCLC develops software for use by libraries and their users, museums, and academic institutions. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and fulltext information. OCLC aims to be the leading global library cooperative. More than 54,000 libraries in 96 countries and territories around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials.

This paper examines how TCC, a training and consultancy company from Cheshire, England has worked with OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center based in Dublin, Ohio to incorporate the Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) into a development culture that was deeply-rooted in "traditional" software development methods. Examples from multiple projects illustrate how the adoption of DSDM helped OCLC change its culture and achieve success in software development and deployment. OCLC's TLC dashboard was used to track the effectiveness of the development cycle, and to collect metrics from 2003 to the present. We discuss some of the challenges we faced and the six agile steps to success.

1. Introduction

In 1998, The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), a large, nonprofit company based in Dublin, Ohio, was experiencing problems with its software delivery. We realized time-to-market was becoming increasingly important to our customers and began to really take a hard look at our software development practices.

We identified that projects were typically 18 - 24 months in duration and products were often obsolete even before they were released. Teams were trapped into developing has-been software and then trying to bring it up to speed through maintenance releases. Follow me now on my six steps to Agile success.

The six Agile Steps to success

1. OCLC Meets DSDM
2. Does it really work that way?
3. Project Set-up and the "rolling workshop"
4. We also need to tailor to our processes
5. The Metrics of our Journey - OCLC Results
6. Where are we today, and where do we go now?