Agile

Columnist Michael Hugos describes how to build an agile IT architecture in three easy steps, from integrating internal and external systems to developing customer-facing applications.

When Bill Raduchel was CIO of Sun Microsystems, he espoused KISSS (Keep It Small, Simple, and Separable), the extended version of the KISS principle. IT success wasn't just a matter of keeping things simple, it was making sure that projects were as small and separable as possible. This was years before the Agile Manifesto, but the logic -- both technical and user-centered -- was built on the same foundation. The Mythical Man-Month is still in print for a reason.

Agile methods need only the most important metrics: the ones that tell the whole story about the project.