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Running a Sprint (O'ReillyNet)
O'ReillyNet looks
into programming sprints. "The world of programming is seeing a
lot of change in methodology, much of it is associated with "agile"
techniques such as Scrum and pair programming. If there's anything
traditional in the world of agile development, sprints are the traditional
way to give a project a boost by focusing the efforts of a group on
specific development issues. While typically a real rather than a virtual
event, a sprint takes advantage of physical proximity of team members. This
makes it popular at events such as conferences, which naturally increase
the developer density above normal levels. Open source conferences now
frequently feature a sprint before or after the conference proper."
(Log in to post comments)
Running a Sprint (O'ReillyNet) Posted Oct 20, 2006 22:39 UTC (Fri) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link] """If several sprints are happening at the same time and place (a multi-project sprint) it helps to have an overall organizer. Each individual sprint should have a chair or leader who can set the agenda and keep individual participants in the loop. The overall organizer can recruit the chairs, ensure that there are sufficient resources for the individual sprints (or set limits on the sprint when no more resources are available), and help to publicise the sprint opportunity. Here is an example of a sprint announcement.
Delegates can be invited by the organizer or the sprint chairs, but in the open source world even commercially-sponsored events are usually open to anyone who can contribute. For the Need for Speed sprint, the main sponsor invited several individuals, paying their air fares to the venue and accommodation costs. That particular venue was expensive in open source terms and so, despite a couple of inquiries, nobody else attended.
Communications between the organizer and the chairs, and between the chairs and their participants, can use email but often a medium such as a Wiki is more suitable for recording decisions as the nature of the event becomes clearer."""
I have a question.
Why are these called "Sprints" and not simply "Open Source Bureaucracy Spasms?
Management isn't bureaucracy Posted Oct 21, 2006 10:44 UTC (Sat) by fredrik (subscriber, #232) [Link] (sorry if I missed a smiley, still early morning here.)
Every kind of group activity must be (and are!) managed, either implicitly or explicitly. A small group can manage itself without explicit management, communication is simple when you only have two or three other to synchronize your decisions with. When the group size increase beyond a handful the network effect makes synchronization within the group difficult and the need for synchronize by explicit management and organization increases.
So it is only natural that when more than a dozen open source developers meet and work together, they organize themselves to be able to work efficiently.
Now, the description you quoted, while certainly correct, was more than a little dry. Still, it doesn't describe bureaucracy, but an effort to make the joint work of big groups efficient and smooth for everyone involved.
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"Agile" programming Posted Oct 23, 2006 16:26 UTC (Mon) by AJWM (subscriber, #15888) [Link] Bah. Back in my day we called it "rapid prototyping". These days they just release the prototype. Humbug. ;-)
Seriously, there's not much new (except perhaps the language du jour) in programming, it's just the names that change. Sprints can be usefull, whether they're called sprints, pushes, or blitzes. When the development force is distributed -- as with OSS projects -- rather than gathered in a cathedral, then yeah, doing them in conjunction with a conference makes sense. It also can provide a sense of deadline that might otherwise be less damocletian than in a market-driven project.
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