Sergio Andreozzi

My working environment presents challenging conditions as regards the capability of managing the working time, the identification of requirements and the definition of priorities. Moreover, there are frequent external requests trying to catch your attention in order to direct you towards other tasks. These characteristics are typical in the research area (not specific to my conditions) and they are even more emphasized by the fact that I’m involved in many activities.

From time to time, I wonder about best practice, tools and any other supporting process that can help in supporting my work. Traditional project management processes are too rigid for this environment, simple to do list are “too simple” because they become soon overcrowded and almost useless. Around a year ago I discovered SCRUM, a lightweight process that can manage and control software and product development. There are two main documents that I would recommend to read: SCRUM Primer and The SCRUM Software Development Process for Small Teams.

SCRUM requires simple concepts easy to learn for all members of a team. There are also tools to support this process, some of them is also free (e.g., ScrumWorks Basic). At the moment, I’m trying to introduce SCRUM in GridICE, a software project where I’m involved since its beginning (2003) and composed by 9 persons, almost all of them part-time involved.

The idea is to adapt SCRUM to the specific context of GridICE, avoiding the need to introduce a new management tool to install and manage, but to exploit the capabilities of the GForge portal. A SCRUM-specific plug in would be a must, nevertheless we try to identify the best way to use trackers and tasks functionalities. We’ll see the advantages in the next months.

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