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Agile is a Fad

July5FeatureAgile is the hottest word in our profession these days. Go to any BA or PM conference and there is at least 1 session dedicated to agile.  Even if the session does not have agile in it, you’ll hear the agile word over and over.  On sites like this one, there are many blogs and articles written about agile.  Here is the article that inspired me to write this post, Four Agile Tips to Eliminate Rework in Application Development .  

The article lists these four tips which are credited to agile methods. 

 

  1. Collaborate – Involve multiple stakeholders in requirements definition
  2. Be lean – Quote from article – “Agile methods teach us that a 400-page document is not required in order for development to begin. In an agile environment, development can start with high-level user stories with perhaps one layer of detail added.”
  3. Iterate – Approach requirements definition in an iterative process
  4. Visualize – requirements do not have to be written in paragraph form.

I agree 100% with all of these tips not because they are agile tips, but because they are smart practices.  Before the Agile Manifesto was developed, I worked on teams that collaborated, were lean, iterated, and visualized. I wrote about this in a blog post last year, My First Agile Project.  I would guess you have been doing this for some time too. This is why the word agile is a fad.  In the near future we will stop having debates of whether you use agile vs traditional approaches.  We’ll just start doing what is appropriate for projects to drive results.

This spring I saw Scott Ambler speak and he said we don’t need repeatable processes we need repeatable results.  What this says to me, is do what is needed to drive results.  Teams need to come together and determine what will work best to give them the best chance to deliver results.  This is just smart.   

The agile movement shook our community and made us all think about how we were running projects.  It made us make sure we are focusing on business value.  Don’t push for agile over waterfall, push for what is right for the project. Push for what is right for the business in the short and long term.  Even though I think the word agile is a fad, the agile movement is definitely a trend.

All the best,

Kupe

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