Embedded Agile Project by the Numbers With Newbies

Abstract

There is a class of projects that can only be accomplished via agile practices due to their complexity and risks. It is rare for such a project to be staffed with newbies but it happened, and this paper tells the story. It is also rare for an agile project to have substantial hard numbers to tell its story but this one does. This paper presents detailed metrics from a three year long agile project where a newly formed development team produced a new embedded software product from scratch. The team experimented with various agile practices while recording data on bug rates, bug root causes, code size, schedule compliance, and labor expended. Although most of the team members lacked important technical skills for this work, they outperformed far more experienced teams. The natural learning environment and safety net that agile provides allowed them to learn fast while keeping them from serious mistakes.