Agile development may be a hot trend but it’s hard to get right.
- Are you afraid to take risks?
- Are you afraid of losing your job if you mess up?
- Does your boss operate on the “failure is not an option” principle?
- Do you feel the need to be right all the time?
- Is “playing it safe” the approach your boss prefers?
- Is perfection the goal your boss seeks?
If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, you’ll find it tough to follow agile principles in software development.
- Being agile means taking risks.
- Being agile means accepting small failures.
- Being agile means perfection is a journey not a goal.
If your management team catches agile fever and orders your software development team to be agile, ask them the questions above. While you’re at it, ask the the following questions too.
- Why?
- What problem needs to be solved?
- What is the goal of changing the development approach?
- Will the rest of the company also commit to being agile?
- What is the budget for training, coaching, tools, etc?
Enterprise transitions from any command-and-control development approach to any agile approach (e.g. Kanban, Lean, Scrum, XP) won’t be easy, fast, or cheap. Get everyone to accept that — up front.