Why is something as flaky as Agile doing so well at the moment? Until it gets found out, here is why:
Why customers like Agile:
- they don’t need to define their requirements at the start…
- … so they can start sooner
- they can change their mind as they go along
Why suppliers like Agile:
- they don’t have to make any promises at the start
- all the risk is with the customer
- they can take longer if they need to
but I think you can see from the above that it’ll all end in tears…
Chris Croft says
I was delighted to receive this email today:
Your blog succinctly lays out why customers and vendors both like agile. And the reasons aren’t very creditable.
There are no good agile practices that can’t be incorporated into a conventional managed project. I’ve seen agile used to justify the most slipshod practices. As with most things, success depends on the quality of individuals and teams, and not so much on doctrinaire methodologies.
I’m only surprised that the love affair with agile on the business side hasn’t soured. According to standish’ criteria, the three success factors for judging project outcomes are budget, schedule, and customer value (replacing “scope”). So that means customers are assessing retrospectively the quality of project outcomes vs measuring hope or expectation. This rather surprises me. But as you say, Chris, customers are measuring value of project outcomes against what objective standard?
It does seem like an expert con game….. And you’re right about the difficulty of scaling agile projects. The CHAOS report has got that covered already by saying success rates of any project that isn’t SMALL is very low. So they’re advising do NOT do a project unless it’s “small”. I don’t want to fly in a plane that was constructed by agile teams thank you.