Agile approach to the new web appearance
The website of the Center for Security Studies (www.css.ethz.ch) went online at the beginning of the year.
The CSS also has a think tank, which analyses and comments on world events in security policies. It is therefore important that publications and media articles are available quickly on the CSS website. In addition, the publications are made known to an interested audience by means of regular newsletters. In the process, the articles are linked to the corresponding documents on the website, which means all articles must be retrievable on the website promptly.
Hence, the cycle of CSS publications differs considerably from the scientific publications of other institutes at the ETH. The CSS publications are not reviewed by committees for scientific newspapers and catalogued by the ETH library. The publications of the CSS should appear on the website as soon as they are available, and they should not appear in a scientific citation format, but rather in a visually attractive format.
The CSS publication database is thus a central part of the web appearance of CSS. The requirements criteria for the implementation of this publication database were as follows: For each publication, it should be possible to upload cover pictures (jpeg) as well as the publications (pdf) in the languages German and English as well as French if need be. In addition, it should be possible to enhance the individual publications with any number of graphics.
The integration of a publication database with these requirements in the new WCMS of ETH is not very easy. Nevertheless, we were able to complete this project in the targeted time frame. And we did it with a project specification that only covered one page! How did we do it?
Agile approach
This project succeeded because we worked with agile methods. The fact that the parties involved in the project had a good understanding of the specific requirements and wishes of the customer did contribute towards the success. That was the only way in which it was possible to implement a complex project of this type with such a concise specification.
In agile approaches, the process of ascertaining the requirements and putting them into a document in detail is replaced by an intensive interaction between the customer and developers. This requires strong participation by the customer in the course of the project. Specifically, we met at least once a month and discussed the project progress with the customer. The customer was rewarded for this involvement by the possibility to be able to feed in new wishes and ideas as required. Accordingly, on the developer’s side, this required a tremendous amount of flexibility and the readiness to deal with these requests. Any customer wish is valid, but such a wish is not always good, at least in its initial form. Sometimes it was necessary to recognise and work out the actual need behind a customer wish. The prerequisite for this is for the involved parties to have good confidence in each other.
The fact that the CSS website is online in the desired form shows that we were able to develop this confidence. The project proves that a great deal of formality is not necessary to bring a complex project to a successful conclusion. If there is a basis of confidence, then an agile procedure together with a one-page specification is sufficient.
Contact
Dr Benno Luthiger, WCMS, LMS & Mobile Applications, ITS Software Services (ITS SWS)
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