Call for Papers

Below is the call for papers for the upcoming Cutter IT Journal issue Agile in the Real World guest edited by Dave Rooney

As a consultant and Agile Coach, I've had the opportunity to work with many different clients and speak to many people about Agile methods. From my earliest Agile experiences in 2000 to the present day I've encountered a common statement made by those who haven't been part of teams working in an agile manner, and even from some who have. The phrasing always contains the words, "in the real world."

For example, "Agile is great in theory, but I can't see it working in the real world."

Or how about, "Test-driven Development sounds great, but in the real world it's impractical."

Then there's, "Having each team member dedicated 100% to the team would be wonderful, but in the real world we have to live with partial allocations of time."

The Real World. What does that really mean? In the cases where I've heard the term, I think that you could substitute the phrase "in my experience," or "in this organization in its current state." As a Coach it can be frustrating to hear someone want to stop the conversation, but it's also an indication that the person or group have other issues that are causing them to lose sleep.

When I first connected with others in the Agile space over a decade ago, there was another common thread among most of us. Almost all of us saw the practices of Scrum and Extreme Programming and recognized them from previous experience as "things that worked well." In 1992 I personally worked on a team that was co-located with it's Customer, worked in small increments and solicited feedback on the work early and often. I would consider that group successful, meeting Customer needs in a timely manner even when they changed. The group was able to consistently do this over the long term, which certainly fits a loose definition of Agile.

Since Agile didn't exist then, and we didn't call our process anything or have certifications, how could it have possibly been successful? Joking aside, this is the crux of the matter:

Teams and organization are successfully delivering software systems and products in this so-called Real World. They're too busy being effective to worry about what their process is called.

Do you have experiences similar to this? If so, please consider contributing your story or stories to this edition of the Cutter IT Journal. Let's compare and contrast what we have seen, with an end goal of providing a dogma-free, buzzword-free view of what represents software delivery agility in The Real World.

Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Which "Mainstream" Agile practices worked well, and/or which ones did not?
  • Did you have an effective experience working with COTS products, where a project is more configuration than development?
  • What groups or organizations delivered a constant stream of business value, but didn't use any special names for it?
  • What is your experience responding to market opportunities and changes quickly without incurring technical debt?
  • Do you know of any groups or organizations that were " Agile before it had a name?"
  • What practices were effective in domains not often represented in the Agile community, such as: avionics; plant control systems; life-critical software; embedded device software; pharmaceutical industry software; medical software; business intelligence systems; data analytics (Big Data); effective practices in the open source world

TO SUBMIT AN ARTICLE IDEA

Please respond to drooney[at]cutter[dot]com, with a copy to cgenerali[at]cutter[dot]com no later than 27 August 2014 and include an extended abstract and a short article outline showing major discussion points.

ARTICLE DEADLINE

Accepted articles are due by 26 September 2014.

EDITORIAL GUIDELINES

Most Cutter IT Journal articles are approximately 2,500-3,000 words long, plus whatever graphics are appropriate. If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact CITJ's Group Publisher, Christine Generali at cgenerali[at]cutter[dot]com or the Guest Editor, Dave Rooney at drooney[at]cutter[dot]com. Editorial guidelines are available online.

COPYRIGHT

When you submit an article to Cutter Consortium, you warrant that you (or your employer) are the sole owner of the article and that you have full power and authority to copyright it and publish it. Also, the article you submit to Cutter must be an original; not previously published elsewhere.

Articles published in the journal must meet certain criteria relating to audience, technical content, and presentation. In the unlikely occurrence that, upon selection and editorial review, your completed article does not meet with these requirements, Cutter Consortium reserves the right to decline the publishing of your article in the journal.

For more information, see Cutter's copyright policy.

AUDIENCE

Typical readers of CITJ range from CIOs and vice presidents of software organizations to IT managers, directors, project leaders, and very senior technical staff. Most work in fairly large organizations: Fortune 500 IT shops, large computer vendors, and government agencies. 48% of our readership is outside of the US (15% from Canada, 14% Europe, 5% Australia/NZ, 14% elsewhere). Please avoid introductory-level, tutorial coverage of a topic. Assume you're writing for someone who has been in the industry for 10 to 20 years, is very busy, and very impatient. Assume he or she will be asking, "What's the point? What do I do with this information?" Apply the "So what?" test to everything you write.

PROMOTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

We are pleased to offer Journal authors a year's complimentary subscription and five copies of the issue in which they are published. In addition, we occasionally pull excerpts, along with the author's bio, to include in our bi-weekly Cutter Edge e-mail bulletin, which reaches another 8,000 readers. We'd also be pleased to quote you, or passages from your article, in Cutter press releases. If you plan to be speaking at industry conferences, we can arrange to make copies of your article available for attendees of those speaking engagements -- furthering your own promotional efforts.

ABOUT CUTTER IT JOURNAL

No other journal brings together so many cutting-edge thinkers, and lets them speak so bluntly and frankly. We strive to maintain the Journal's reputation as the "Harvard Business Review of IT." Our goal is to present well-grounded opinion (based on real, accountable experiences), research, and animated debate about each topic the Journal explores.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS CALL FOR PAPERS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT HAVE AN APPROPRIATE SUBMISSION.