Guidelines
• Read the following case study and answer the questions below in the form as a report.
You are expected to answer each question in approximately 300-350 words.
• Create a video presentation (approx. 5 mins) which should include the following
aspects:
o Your understanding of the case study, and
o Presentation of your response to the associated questions.
Use of waterfall vs. agile methods at Mellon Financial
Mellon Financial’s shift to agile software development is part of an emerging trend. ‘Every
investment bank and hedge fund I’ve spoken to is looking at agile’, says SunGard’s Chapman.
A relatively new term, agile development is based on iterative development – developing
software in small, manageable chunks that can be modified as requirements change, yet using
a disciplined software delivery mechanism.
Historically, the software development approach used throughout Wall Street has been the
‘waterfall’ method, which calls for strict, lengthy analysis and documentation of
requirements. For a one-year project, for example, three to six months might be spent on
needs analysis. ‘The business people are expected to define 100 percent of their requirements
up front before the project even starts’, Chapman says. ‘People get stuck in this analysis
paralysis – they spend months and months trying to define what they want.’
Another three to six months can be devoted to software design, then the actual program
finally is written. ‘Inevitably what happens is requirements change, integration becomes very
difficult and all the risky software development happens at the end of the development
effort’, Chapman explains. ‘The waterfall approach has a horrible track record of delivery.’
Agile software development is designed to deliver software more quickly yet maintain high
quality. In agile methods, every two or four weeks, businesspeople get a small amount of code
to review and the opportunity to change the requirements. ‘Imagine a hedge fund where
traditionally a new credit derivatives trading system would take a year to build using the
waterfall approach, with businesspeople writing six months’ worth of documentation versus
using an agile approach, where some of the system is delivered in two weeks, and it’s OK if
you change your mind’, Chapman says. ‘For the hedge funds particularly, agile is an
extraordinarily good fit because the portfolio managers want to get things done quickly.’
But not every project lends itself to short iterations, Chapman concedes. ‘On Wall Street it’s
not so easy because there are a lot of other systems you need to integrate with’, he says. ‘But
I think there are parts of agile you can use on every project to improve it.’ Agile development
has three levels: developer, project, and enterprise. ‘Nobody on Wall Street is using agile at
the enterprise level’, Chapman says. ‘A lot of education needs to take place within the banks
– it’s going to take some time. But I think every project could gain some benefit from trying to
break down the project into more manageable chunks that can be delivered in a more
iterative and agile way.’
Agile methods even improve software quality, Chapman contends, because they emphasize
testing. Agile methods encourage developers to do their own testing, often requiring them to
write the tests before they write any code and to develop automated testing routines for the
programs they deliver.
‘Agile development approaches and CMMI are compliant with each other – you can use CMM
and CMMI to make agile software development better’, Chapman adds. On the other hand,
he asserts, trying to use CMM and CMMI on top of waterfall development approaches will
just weigh projects down with bureaucracy and paperwork.
Questions
• What does the observation that ‘requirements change, integration becomes very
difficult and all the risky software development happens at the end of the development
effort’ suggest about the traditional waterfall approach to software development with
respect to system design?
• Do you think there are any dangers in trying to take short cuts around the traditional
approach to systems design?
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