Using metrics and automation to accelerate the creative process has been my obsession for some time now. I’ve found a generalization between how one builds both games and gardens.
The hypothesis: tightly integrating agile strategies into the core of your project via Automation, Architecture and Analytics produces a hyper-agile software system: one can quickly identify problems and quickly shift both code and process, while also casting meaningful projections of future behaviors from current and historical data.
A cyclic, incremental evolution strategy that draws metrics from the current cycle to guide the next cycle, automation to accelerate each cycle, is discussed. This Measure / Change / Measure model provides better focus on tangible problems than the traditional Guess / Change / Hope model, more predictable progress and manages continual growth. Creativity is enhanced by providing a higher “what ifs per day” factor for each developer, and by having stable code bases and stable play test environments to experiment in.
The integration of several agile development strategies is proposed, ranging from test driven development, short, instrumented sprints, metrics driven development and Kaizen process improvement.
I haven’t finalized the format for this page yet, so here are a few of the blog postings that form the basis for this page.
And the funny/serious side combined: You can live without metrics in the same way that you can live without bottled water, in a land where Montezuma still seeks his revenge.