Define Agile without talk about post-its
Post-its, whiteboards, disordered conversation. Normally, that is the idea that people have about Agile, but despite that Agile wrong definition. This Methodology has a long time and are based on principles who which by far are most important than colorful paper with glue.
The Agile Manifesto, much talked about, however little-known. Agilist who chasing by a solid knowledge, without so many efforts to remember all of 12 principles and 4 values that was written by 17 biggest Lightweight Methodology enthusiasts, today’s known for Agile Methodology.
Those principles was written on 2001, in a meeting that was created by Robert Cecil Martin, well-known like Uncle Bob, that has seen a Agile Methodology interest by inside and outside software development labour market.
That, before was by few people known like Lightweight Methodology has its name changed to Agile Methodology, however became to be famous just over time. Even so, many companies still avoid this changes. So maintaining what IT Bimodal call like “Mode 1” instead of invest its money in those changes, too called “Mode 2”.
Is Mode 2 the best option? Only your project context could give to you that response.
Anyway, I think so much attractive the idea who give to the product owner some value to its business in short time span and human-centered design, instead of huge documentation focused on what few technical peoples thinks like right to final user.
At this moment I will explain my view, talking characteristics and possibles advantages that Agile could bringing up.
Characteristics
1 . Working software is the primary measure of progress
Unlike the Waterfall model, Agile does not consider evolution times spended with documentation, analysis, requirements, or test cases, of course, these artifacts still have immeasurable value in a large-scale process, but none of them fits as a primary metric to see whether or not there is an evolutionary process related to the project.
Always good to remember, value is something relative, and the concept of value could and should be aligned with the customer.
2. Easy measurement of risks
As we all know, it’s easier to plan the cost of time and money for building a wheel than for a whole car, right? Okay, but, what does this have to do with agile software development? In Agile software is built in a continuous, incremental and evolutionary way.
Benefits
1. High level of adaptability
As I said earlier, this that an agile project is developed makes it easier to measure risks, values and also reduces uncertainty. That taking the team focussed on the current goal and not the problems that may possibly came to arise.
Many products are idealized based on trends, not only visual trends, but product trends, in such cases, the time spent in in deep analysis as in the Waterfall model can be fatal to the project idea.
Because of these changes, one of the biggest positive points I see in Agile is its easy adaptation to these projects with higher levels of uncertainty.
2. Value added to the business in a small time
Due to the short periods of continuous integration of the latest version of the code (as I mentioned earlier), an agile project tends to up bringing value more quickly to the client’s business.
Difficulties
- Collaborators discomfort for increase in the linearity of the organization.
Usually, at transformation time from Waterfall to Agile mode — also known in some companies per Agile Revolution — many changes are quickly perceptives.
These structure company changes cause discomfort in some contributors who had already acquired their rights, such as private rooms, the exclusive environment of top management and so on. This discomfort can lead to demotivation of employees, non-adherence to new processes and internal intrigues, which would ultimately reduce the group’s performance.
2. Failure to implement processes
Often becasue to lack of experience and support, a beginning team at Agile Methods tries to assign processes to the workflow, without success. These failures can not only be derived from the flexibility of the chosen tools to the context of the project, but also from the immaturity of people to work as a cross functional multidisciplinary teams (is a group of people with different functional expertise working toward a common goal).
Post-its and colorful places, therefore, are just a stereotype of place where the Agile is growing today. It is noted that due to lack of knowledge about the methodology, many companies sell themselves as Agile, making clients and even contributors belive in this advertisement.
So, to everyone who were interested in the content of this post, I advise to read the Best Sellers on Agile Methodology, which in my opinion will guarantee an theoretical basis and solidity of your arguments regarding the subject.
Ideas of how to start: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Top+five+Agile+books
See this entire post in Portuguese: https://medium.com/@matheusvarelladeoliveira/defina-%C3%A1gil-sem-citar-post-its-6d37c3004a91
