It’s fair to say that the popularity of Agile has been a positive shockwave throughout the digital sector; however, does a widespread understanding mirror this new awareness of Agile? From my personal experience, I’d say that many are aware of agile but few really understand it well enough to implement it effectively. I’ve seen people try to adopt agile techniques for the sake of it; awkwardly shoehorning it into current working practices. If you or your client have a fixed budget and a deadline, it’s unlikely you’re going to apply agile in its purist form so deciding when to implement agile can be a challenge. Comparing and contrasting modern techniques with traditional project management techniques is useful; however, to claim one is better than the other is short sighted and this where many people go wrong.
The origins of Agile
Agile was conceived when people realised that there were restrictions in working in particular ways when other approaches would be beneficial. Therefore, by its very inception, it stands to reason that traditional techniques still have their place in software projects. People tend to misrepresent Agile by claiming that only Agile techniques such as Scrum offer responsiveness and adaptability. Responsiveness to change is a key principle in waterfall frameworks such as PRINCE2, so it’s not correct to think this way. Instead, it’s better to consider the core principles of each delivery method as appearing somewhere on a spectrum. One such spectrum could be control and structure VS adaptability. You’d probably place waterfall at the very structured end of this particular spectrum. Then you might place agile at the adaptability end of the spectrum. Then, according to your needs, you’d pick a delivery approach.
Choosing a project management approach that works
Perhaps you would like to release a product to market as quickly as possible or respond to market trends? In this case, Scrum would be a good fit. Structure and control would be paramount when managing a very complex product to fixed timescales with a fixed budget, so you’d opt for a waterfall technique such as PRINCE2. When someone fully grasps the benefits and limitations of each delivery method, you’ll notice that they don’t just accept the restrictions of each method. Instead, they aim to incorporate the contrasting themes. If you’re adopting an agile technique, you will know that with increased responsiveness to change comes a lack of control. In this instance, you should implement suitable control measures. Why run an agile project with no project documentation if you know you will need to refer back to it later? If you’re adopting a traditional approach and you know you have a client who is known for changing their mind, you need to formalise how change will be handled.
Conclusions
When you can successfully work around each method’s restrictions, you can truly adopt different approaches and pick the right one for the project/client. This gives the project team the best chance of success. I think it’s time we challenged the misconceptions around Agile and the myth that Agile is always better. However, with the right understanding and a well thought out project approach, each software delivery methodology can be truly effective.
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