Applying Agile Development in

a Politically Tempestuous Domain

Bjorn Freeman-Benson & Alan Borning

Center for Urban Simulation and Policy Analysis,
University of Washington
The Tempest

• William Shakespeare (1564–1616).

• Master: Ward Cunningham

• Bosun & Prospero: Bjorn Freeman-Benson
• Mariners: Jeff McKenna
• Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand,
Gonzalo, and others: Rick Mugridge
In The Paper

• All Open Process • Status Meetings

• Continual Diligence • Student Involvement
• Dashboard and Turnover
• Framework for • Testing
Integrated Tests (FIT) • Today Emails
• Nested Iterations • Traffic Light
• Refactoring • Value Sensitive Design
• Social Difficulties with
Constant Change
UrbanSim
• Integrated land use and transportation models
can provide an important tool for exploring
policy alternatives and possible urban futures
• What if …?
– We built a new freeway or rail line?
– We changed zoning or established an urban growth
boundary?
– We changed the tax structure?
• Analogy: SimCity, but with requirements for
realism
• Unfortunately, existing models are inadequate
What’s at Stake?

• Urban land use and transportation critical for:

– Economic health
– Livability and community
– Sustainability
• Land use and transportation interact
– Just planning transportation systems without considering
their land use effects ignores this linkage
• Both land use and transportation have strong
environmental impacts
– Resource consumption (water, energy, …)
– Air and water pollution
– Loss of open space and habitat
– Global warming
UrbanSim Users
• Center for Urban Simulation Collaborators
– Eugene-Springfield, Oregon
– Honolulu, Hawaii
– Houston, Texas
– Salt Lake City, Utah
– Seattle, Washington
• Others
– El Paso, Texas
– Paris, France
– Taipei, Taiwan
Employment Location Influences

• Real Estate Characteristics

– Prices
– Development type (land use mix, density)
• Regional accessibility
– Access to population
– Travel time to CBD, airport
• Urban design-scale
– Proximity to highway, arterials
– Local agglomeration economies within & between sectors:
center formation
Visualization of Simulation Results
Agile Process

Models
Metropolitan
UrbanSim Planning
Organization
Software
All Open Process
• Given the high stakes and pressures of
urban planning, reliable, high-quality,
credible software is essential.
– Polarized debate
– Entrenched stakeholder groups
• To help establish credibility, repeatable
high quality is also essential.
Beyond Open Source
• Open Source – availability and access to
the source code is not compromised
• Open Code – code is readable,
documented, and understandable. Not
only not obfuscated, but deliberately
written to be understandable. The
principle of clarity is not compromised.
Beyond Open Source
• Open Design – design documents are
available and easily accessed. Design is
deliberately created to be clear to as
large a subset of the customers as
possible.
• Open Process – process documents and
status are available, easily accessed,
and written for clarity.
Traffic Light
• “With information radiators,
the passersby don’t need to
ask questions; the information
simply hits them in the face.”
[Cockburn 2002]
Traffic Light
• Push technology
• Culturally familiar colors
• Seeing / hearing progress

• Failure indicators are less useful

• Shooting the messenger problems
Conclusion
• YP is one set of process decisions in the
overall agile space
• Our decisions are for use:
– with a transient workforce, and
– in a very public context to foster credibility
and confidence