JavaZone 2009 - Agile Application Management
Why stop when the fun is just getting started?
A typical phenomenon in IT-projects is how all projects seem to lose focus and momentum as soon as the system reaches production. The team is dispersed. New and often inexperienced personnel take over. Why does this happen? Would you stop nurturing and developing your newborn child?
Application Management is often synonym to bug fixing and maintenance - and boring. It’s like in a hospital where it's all about keeping the patient alive, not helping them. While it of course is important to keep the patient alive, the point is that we should be focusing on improving the system. The system has finally reached a phase where you can get real feedback and adjust to reach your business goals.
We will look into how healthy agile principles and techniques should prevail through development, into production and thus Application Management. Keep up the good iterative momentum! The goals of the application are still valid and shouldn't disappear. Instead one should embrace the fact that the application now is in a phase where it can collect real feedback. Understand the business' overall strategy and visions, and make sure to measure how you're doing according to these. Make the application management phase an arena for realizing values and driving the business forward.
Dare to aim for the stars! It's time to create real value in the real world...
Jahn Arne Johnsen
Jahn Arne Johnsen is a Senior Consultant at BEKK Consulting. He is head of the company's Application Management Unit and works in projects as a System Developer / Architect and Project Manager. Jahn Arne has a strong interest in agile team organization and value realization. He is especially interested in how the agile process could be adapted for application management in order to still maintain value focus and accommodate proper SLA-handling.