After visiting DaiNippon we went to Azzuri to see how they were doing agile development. They were using the term Work Cell (from Lean Manufactoring) for organizing developers in small teams. I think it would require further investigation before I would make any conclusions on the Work Cell idea. The desks that were used had been handpicked to facilitate pair programming - How? The table legs were positioned so workers could move easily to the nearby workstations!


Later we went to Kenji Hiranabe's company Eiwa System Management, Inc. and talked with the employees on how they were developing software. I encountered the term Iki-Iki (translated to Alive), which I concluded was an initiative for fostering employee satisfaction.

After the visit to Eiwa we were all invited to a meeting with the Agile Japan group - where we participated in a panel discussion focusing on how we viewed agile software development, and how widespread the agile approach was in Europe and the United States. One of the things I noticed was how fixed scope software contracts seemed alarmingly common - not only in Japan.

As with last years meeting with XPJUG we ended the evening with a nice dinner and informal talk with the members of Agile Japan. I got to pratice both my japanese and my ability to sit in a cross-legged position (auch!)

I feel certain that we have started building a long-term friendship with the Japanese agile community - and I very much hope to get a chance to see some of these guys again later this year at the Agile 2009 conference.
By Sune Gynthersen