Agile Scrum will be used as the development methodology for the ArchivesSpace project. You can learn more about Agile Scrum from this overview put together by ArchivesSpace Team member Joe Pawletko, and his colleague Esha Datta, at New York University.
What does Agile Scrum mean for the ArchivesSpace community? Unlike more traditional software development methods, Agile focuses on getting a “minimum viable product” in front of the people who will be using the system as soon as possible. This means the ArchivesSpace team will be asking community members who have volunteered to test the software to try the software before it is “done”. This early testing insures that the product will meet requirements before the software is so far along in development that changes would be difficult.
Because testers are looking at an unfinished product, it is important to focus on basic functionality, rather than detailed design features in the early phases. This new methodology requires a little different way of working, but the payoff should be a product that more closely meets the needs of the community when the development phase winds down.