Scaling Agile Methodologies for Developing a Production Accounting System for the Oil & Gas Industry

Harprit Grewal , Frank Maurer

Experience Reports · Leadership

Thursday, 08:30, 1 hour 30 minutes | Congressional Hall B

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This report discusses the employment of Agile methodologies in what can be described as a medium to large scale project [1]. Production Accounting is the process of tracking the oil & gas products and their by-products as they travel through the complicated networks of Wells, Batteries, Gathering System, Gas Plant, and End-point facilities. The Production Accounting System (PAS) is an enterprise application developed by CGI together with four oil & gas companies. The PAS project is in its 3rd year of development. The team consists of approximately 70 developers, business analysts, and QA. In this report, we will discuss the impact Agile methodologies had on the project over the period of two and half years and the lessons learned while scaling agile techniques to a relatively large team. We will discuss some interesting experience – good and bad – encountered during the course of this project.

Dr Frank Maurer is the head of the e-Business engineering (ebe) group at the University of Calgary and consults with industry on agile software development. His research interests are - agile software methodologies - web engineering - globally distributed software development - experience and knowledge management - integrating agile methods and interaction design. More information about his research can be found at the web site of the e-Business engineering research group (http://ebe.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/ebe/). He currently serves as the program co-chair for Agile 2007, Associate Editor of IEEE Software as well as a member of several program committees.