Comments on: Are you doing agile or are you doing waterfall with some agile practices?

By: Curtis Miller

Curtis Miller — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:04:09 +0000

While I think those are four good points for Agile as it pertains to the actual software development, I think you're missing a key tenet of the Agile methodology, specifically in regards to the first and third points in the Agile Manifesto. They both deal with communication. Maintaining a high level of communication with your team, customer and other stakeholders improves your chance of successfully delivering your software. I often hear from people claiming to be Agile that their way is the "right" way, but in my experience there is no such thing. Every project is different and you must adjust to those differences as needed. As they say, the one true agile...

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Twitted by ariekeren — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:57:22 +0000

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By: Paul Jackson

Paul Jackson — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:08:37 +0000

Great Post Alberto!
We’re doing OK on points 1,2 & 4, but, if I’m honest we’re still working through point 3. Formalising TDD and Pair Programming has helped; refactoring is taking a while longer, but that’s more because the client wants to keep benefitting from us delivering new features each and every month, so want to keep up what I call the “Battle Rhythm”. We’re close to persuading them that a refactoring Sprint will make the code (and therefore their business-critical application) more robust, safeguarding their business continuity.

By: Shailendra

Shailendra — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 04:21:28 +0000

Great Post !! Must read for all pseudo Agilists.

Project Teams have to become mature enough to follow Agile Culture as you said.Focusing on processes alone cannot make things agile. Processes should only as guidelines and people should be able to focus on those aspects of Agile makes sense in a particular project.

By: reboltutorial

reboltutorial — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 01:52:57 +0000

I don’think Agile is about forgetting documentation, it’s rather about not waiting for the final documentation before starting to code. This is the concept of iteration where you will refine the software following a progress spiral like the founder of Modern Quality Management advocates in his Deming’s Wheel or PDCA (Plan Do Check Action):
http://statistical-process-control.org/dr-demings-revolution/

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Twitted by francis_dierick — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:12:16 +0000

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By: Michel Ozzello

Michel Ozzello — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:27:25 +0000

You’re 100% right Alberto, the most difficult shift is the culture.

But it’s a really hard shift to make in many people’s heads: for decades we’ve been try to avoid risk by focusing on big-upfront design, trying to cover all possible scenarios and make sure we don’t mess up.

Letting go on this “limit risk and avoid uncertainty” mentality is hard. but is possible and I see new and successful agile teams being set-up every day in my company and our partners’.

Another important aspect on getting agile is experience. You will only be doing Agile right when you have used it in many projects. Some of them will have failed, but if your mindset is an agile one, you’ll have learned from the past mistakes and are able to fine tune your own agile process for success.

Michel

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Twitted by alessandrod — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:09:59 +0000

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By: Zackatoustra

Zackatoustra — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:30:46 +0000

Well, based on the 4 core principles of Agile methods, I guess my projet is 50% agile.
Well, actually, only top executives of the project think we’re doing it “Agile style”. All the design team knows that we’ve been following a classical Waterfall methodology since the beginning with some fun twists from this “exotic so-not-serious Agile metholodology”. But, please, don’t repeat that, those guys may feel bad : “Agile” is such a cool term to use in project meetings!…