Fear of Agile (Get Over It!)

When I was first interviewing for my current position, my boss-to-be said they were "sort of doing a kind of Agile development". I relayed this to my then-coworkers, to a loud chorus of "NO! Not Agile!" followed by warnings about how horrible it would be. (This from Technical Writers who had never worked in an Agile environment, mind.) So I came to this position with some trepidation about the processes I would have to adopt.

After 9 months of working in a 'kind-of' Agile environment, as we try to actually get Agile, I can see both why they were concerned, and why their concerns were misplaced.

A brief intro to Agile software development is probably in order. The basic idea is that you chunk work into units, and assign units of work (commits) to units of time called sprints. The duration of the sprint can vary -- we do two week sprints because it works for us. During the sprint, we have biweekly status update 'meetings' (scrums), as well as an initial sprint planning/commit meeting and a wrap-up meeting at the end of the sprint.

( Writer concern #1, then: )