By sdnadmin | August 2, 2010

Last week, a Google program manager announced the company will shift its software development methodology. While no official word has been confirmed, further comments from the manager hint at the company adopting agile practices for the development of its latest Chrome browser.

On his blog, the Chromium Blog, Anthony Laforge stated "running under ideal conditions, [Google's development teams] will be looking to release a new stable version about once every six weeks, roughly twice as often as we do today." In addition to this mission statement, Laforge goes on to list three main reasons for the methodology shift. The first is reminiscent of his initial comment, with the company wanting to shorten its release cycle to get end products to users quicker. Secondly, the company wants to make its development schedule more predictable and easier in scope. Lastly, Google hopes the shift will reduce the pressure on engineering to make a release.

Despite these points all being quite close to agile practices, the company never mentioned the development methodology by name. While representatives of the search engine were careful with their words, other websites commenting on the situation were not.

A post on Datamation read "the basic premise behind the agile software development methodology is to release early and often to increase incremental innovation. It’s an approach that Google is now set to fully embrace with open arms for its Chrome web browser."

Commenters on Laforge’s blog explicitly asked if the company is adopting agile, but the writer failed to address the questions. One insightful commenter, hoping to shed further light on the situation, pointed out "six weeks is still on the long side for agile and will likely lose some of the benefits."

In 2008, one of the software engineers that worked on the initial release of Chrome spoke with Tech Target about the browser’s development and stated "some might say certain elements seem like agile programming, but we didn’t specifically say ‘let’s use this methodology;’ we just said we’d do what seems right."

While Google seems to avoid using the methodology by name, the company looks to be adopting agile practices by making this reported switch. The search engine giant would be part of the increased number of companies incorporating these practices. A recent survey from Executive Brief found agile to be the preferred method of development among its respondents, with more than half of the 500 professionals choosing it. This figure is up from 42 percent in 2009.