Agile In Startup

Session Title: Agile in a Start-up (Experience report)

Submitters: Antonello Caboni, Colin Grossman

Abstract

Many Agile case studies focus on migrating to Agile from a waterfall methodology in a large organisation.  Similarly, most entrepreneurial startups begin without following any software development methodology at all.  At Huddle we introduced Agile at a very early stage and have developed our process in order to keep pace with the fast growth of the organisation.

This experience report will look at the evolution of Agile at Huddle over the last two years. We will discuss:

• How we implemented Agile in a very small team with no existing development process
• The mutual benefit to the development team and the wider organisation gained through ensuring company wide investment in Agile
• The challenges we faced with Agile in a startup environment
• The importance of adapting and refining our process frequently
• How we are ensuring our Agile process is sustainable for future growth

Timeline (1 hour)

• Introduction to speakers and Huddle – 5 mins
• Huddle Agile process overview – 5 mins
• The evolution of Agile at Huddle and the challenges we have faced (interactive section with audience participation) – 25 mins
• Building for the future – 5 mins
• Our top ten tips for Agile in start-ups – 10 mins
• Q&A – 10 mins

Audience

Anyone looking to introduce Agile for the first time. Small Agile teams. Start-ups, entrepreneurs. Developers, Product Owners, Scrum Masters, QA Engineers, other Agile team members.

Established in November, 2006, Huddle.net is based in London, UK.

Huddle is a network of secure online workspaces where you can share files, collaborate on ideas, manage projects and organise virtual meetings. It enables teams to work more effectively across boundaries, both inside and outside the enterprise.

In 2008 and 2009, Huddle.net was named in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Social Software. In early 2009, Financial Times named it as one of 10 most promising UK start-ups, and it was named as Gartner’s Cool Vendor in Social Collaboration. In June 2009 Huddle was named as one of 50 global tech start-ups to watch by BusinessWeek and in June 2009 it was named as the Best B2B/Enterprise Start-up in the Europas Awards organised by TechCrunch.