Chapter 2. The story of Acme Media

To make it easier to follow the practices discussed throughout this book, we’ve created a case study to demonstrate the practices in action. The case study will allow you to reflect on the issues and constraints encountered by real companies as they move to agile.

The Acme Media case study is a blend of our experiences with various companies as they migrated to a more agile process. These companies have ranged from tiny internet startups to Fortune 500 companies. The products have included commercial software, internal applications, and online services. The existing development methods have ranged from formal to no defined processes at all. The cultures have ranged from open and collaborative to closed and bureaucratic. The products have ranged from ultrasound equipment to beef jerky.

We don’t use actual company names in order to protect their privacy, but the scenarios discussed are based on real events. Our case study follows Acme Media as the company moves to a custom agile methodology and learns how to deliver maximum value from its software projects.

Let’s look at the details of the Acme Media case study.

2.1. Case study background and circumstances

Acme Corporation is a media company that engages in television broadcasting and interactive media operations. The interactive media operations consist of three product websites. Our case study is tied to the interactive media group and its following three sites:

2.2. About the Acme Media teams

2.3. About the individuals

2.4. What does it look like when a team “becomes agile”?

2.5. Key points to remember

2.6. Looking ahead