Why '6pm'?
The name – 6pm – is derived from the 6 ‘P’ Model which provides the foundation of the Agile Framework.
The 6 ‘P’s represent:
Philosophy
The Agile philosophy is a simple one, it states that in an Agile project the time and resources are fixed while the functionality remains the variable factor. The requirements must therefore contain an amount of flexibility and must allow for prioritisation.
Principles
There are nine principles:
1. Active user involvement is imperative.
2. The team must be empowered to make decisions.
3. The focus is on frequent delivery of products.
4. Fitness for business purpose is the essential criterion for acceptance
of deliverables.
5. Iterative and incremental delivery is necessary to converge on accurate
business solution.
6. All changes during development are reversible.
7. Requirements are base-lined at a high level.
8. Testing is integrated throughout the lifecycle.
9. Collaboration and co-operation between all stakeholders is essential.
People
People are the essence of an Agile team. Agile development teams include people from the technical side as well as people from the business side. Some of the roles recommended by Agile are:
- Executive Sponsor
- Ambassador users
- Advisor Users
- Developers
- Technical Co-ordinator
- Visionary
Practice
Agile makes use of a number of tools and techniques. These include:
- How to plan, organise, run and follow up on an effective workshop.
- Workshop Facilitation.
- Time-boxes - A time-box is a unit of time, 2 to 6 weeks long, at the end of which there should be a deliverable. Time-boxes are split into three phases; investigation phase, refine phase, consolidation phase.
- MoSCoW prioritisation. This is a method used to prioritise requirements. MoSCoW is the acronym for Musts, Shoulds, Coulds, Will not have this time round, the O’s are there fo
Process
The Agile framework is made up of 6 phases. These are:
- Clarify Requirements. The scope of the project must be established and the business problem or business idea must be clearly defined.
- Feasibility Study. Investigate requirements, identify possible business solutions, and propose a business solution.
- Business Study. List prioritised functional and non-functional requirements, identify resources and availability, provide high level estimates for development, define system where development is being made and deployed, define technical standards.
- Functional Model Iteration (FMI). During the FMI phase the users and the developer build the right system together. The main focus here is on the functional requirements.
- Design and Build Iteration (DBI). During the DBI phase the developers are build the system right. The main focus here is on the non-functional requirements.
- Implementation. Train the users, implement the system and review the success of the project.
The phases above are not necessarily a one time pass. Frequent returns may be made between phases 4 and 5. From phase 6 you may also return to any of phases 3, 4, 5.
A project will usually be split into increments that will allow you to return to phase 3 from phase 6 for a second increment.
Products
Each of the phases mentioned mentioned above have a number of products attached to it. Although Agile does not define the standards of the documents it does provide a guideline of what should be included in each product.