Introduction
Organizations are increasingly moving from traditional waterfall methods of software development to agile methodologies, including Scrum. If you're new to agile and not sure of exactly what it is then allow me to give you a five-minute overview before jumping into why companies are moving this direction. You may also want to read Overview of Agile.
Agile refers to a set of values and principles which govern a style of software development that encourages iterative, collaborative and results-focused development. The following definition from Scott Ambler says it best: Agile is an iterative and incremental (evolutionary) process approach to software development which is performed in a highly collaborative manner with ‘just enough’ ceremony that produces high-quality software which meets the changing needs of its stakeholders. Agile is the umbrella for several other popular methods such as Scrum, XP, Feature Driven Development, DSDM and others. Scrum is one of the most popular agile methods. You can think of it as the project management side of agile. Scrum provides the processes and visibility needed to manage and control complex software and product development. Many companies that adopt agile will adopt Scrum for managing the projects and also use some engineering practices of XP (such as Test Driven Development, automated testing, coding standards, and user stories) and some of the agile modeling and light documentation techniques provided by agile modeling.
Benefits of Agile/Scrum
If you adopt Agile/Scrum, your teams will likely:
- Gather the list of work to be completed as user stories
- Develop a release plan to determine the project schedule
- Estimate the complexity of each story in terms of story points
- Work in small two- to four-week fixed iterations (also called sprints)
- Start an iteration with a planning meeting
- Collaborate within the team and with the business
- Have daily fifteen-minute standups to track progress
- Have a demo at the end of each iteration to review what was accomplished (or not!)
- End the iteration with a retrospective
Most importantly, your agile team will have the following goal: "To deliver high-quality, running, tested stories that meet the business need in a predictable, efficient and collaborative manner--on time, on budget!"
So now that I’ve covered what agile is, let’s dive into the top reasons why organizations are moving this direction. We’ll first look at why customers and product owners adopt agile. We’ll then examine why teams and management adopt agile.
Top 8 Reasons Why Customers/Product Owners Adopt Agile
- Early, measurable return on investment. Customers want to see working software at the end of each iteration and early in the process.
- High visibility and control over the project progress. High visibility into project progress can also yield early indications of problems.
- Early and continuous customer feedback. Because the customer is involved throughout development they end up with software they want and will use.
- Empowered Product Owner. The PO is given the information necessary to make decisions to steer the project toward the goal.
- Incremental delivery. Delivery of software on the scheduled release date is not an all or nothing deal.
- Changing business needs. Agile and Scrum are adaptive, and give the product owner more control over adding, changing, or removing requirements (except for the current iteration stories) than traditional methodologies.
- Align IT and the business. Agile aligns business and IT. And teams work only on the top business priorities.
- Reduction of waste. Agile reduces product and process waste. Nothing is developed that isn’t specifically needed. Agile processes are lightweight and value driven.
Top 8 Reasons Why the Team/Management Adopt Agile
Every person on an agile project could add a reason to this list. These, however, are the prominent reasons why more and more companies are adopting agile methods for their software development projects:
- Agile builds empowered, motivated and self organizing teams. Agile produces an increased level of team satisfaction because individuals are empowered to provide input, set the iteration goal, self-organize, and help improve the process. This unleashes the creativity and innovation of the team members.
- Clear expectations are set and communicated. Both the team and product owners have a clear understanding of the release and iteration goals and what is expected of them to reach these goals.
- Success is clearly defined. The agile definition of "Done" is accepted by the product owner as completed and ready to ship. The only measurement for success is stories that are "Done" at the iteration and release level.
- Delivery of measurable results. Agile teams can focus on getting working software delivered instead of clearing impediments, prioritizing, or being pulled in other directions.
- Timely feedback Customers communicate directly with the team. Early and direct feedback is the only way to deliver what the customers really need.
- A sense of accomplishment and recognition. The team feels a sense of accomplishment at each demo when they deliver stories that are "Done" and hear the customer and stakeholder eedback first hand.
- Waste elimination and efficiency. Management realizes the cost/time savings. Many organizations that adopt agile seek to become "Lean" and eliminated processes that add no value.
- Better resource management. The good thing about time-boxed iterations is that they are time-boxed! This means that shared members from other teams (DBAs, Technical SMEs, Report Writers, etc.) will know in advance when the next planning meeting, demo, and retrospective are scheduled.
Capstone Can Help
If your company is struggling to deliver software on time and on budget and you need to become more lean and agile, but you're not sure how to make the necessary change, Capstone can help. Our project managers, developers, and ScrumMasters are seasoned Agile veterans who have been training and assisting customers successfully to develop software for over a decade. We know that Agile principles can seem more than a little intimidating, but we have also made these principles a reality in organizations just like yours ... without unleashing chaos in your IT group or shifting focus away from the people, processes, or technology that are working for you.
Let Capstone transform your business to embrace key Agile principles:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Customer collaboration over contract negotiations
Responding to change over following a plan
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Agile principles enhance all these things--people, process, and technology--putting them to work for your organization in the most powerful way possible, returning early and continued value to the organization.
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