Agile hype and Scrum dogma

21. Nov, 2011 2 Comments

Over the past few years lots of people have been cashing in on the success of Agile and Scrum. Some have even reached cult status so that people say “I was trained by xxxx one of the founders/gurus”. So has this created an Agile/Scrum band-wagon … an overstating of the benefits?
 
Hard facts on the success of Agile are thin on the ground. When someone sponsors its introduction their reputation is on-the-line. No one wants to talk about failure after spending large amounts of of money on training and after having put everyone through so much upheaval.

 
So, is Agile better than Waterfall -in our opinion, yes when it comes to the iterative development of software features and online software, no when it comes to the development of large, complex, multi-element solutions. Do Agile and Scrum give a clear framework for development  and continuous improvement – yes, but so do other systems. Does prototyping and a series of short Waterfall-type projects get you many of the benefits of Agile – well quite possibly, yes.

Which leads to the reality in most organisations, which is to use whatever approach seems most appropriate for the project in hand – be it Agile, Waterfall or a mixture of the two.

But from a product management perspective it doesn’t matter!

Whatever development approach you use, early customer feedback from prototyping or an agile iteration really helps but you’ve still got to understand, prioritise and get the requirements right.

And whatever development approach you use, it still comes down to the quality of the people. Good people will do good work whatever process they’re using.

And after you’ve developed the perfect product you still have to launch and market it. If no-one knows your product exists or understands what it can do, it isn’t going to be successful.

Don’t get us wrong – we think Agile is a great thing, but it’s not the only thing. Don’t get sucked into the hype, dogma and sometimes even religious-like zealotry …. Scrum is not the one and only true way.

Agile/Scrum
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2 Responses to “Agile hype and Scrum dogma”

  1. Tom Newton Reply 04. Mar, 2012 at 8:05 pm

    It’s easy to see why methodologies can attain “cargo cult” status in software development, because it is so hard to get it right, the default thing to do might be to copy someone else who you think is doing it right :)

  2. Keith Godbolt Reply 08. Mar, 2012 at 8:47 am

    Ian – a really interesting perspective. My dev/test team has employed a variant of Agile/Scrum to good effect on a difficult software development in the past 18 months with – I think – outstanding results. The fast paced approach with insistence on working deliverables has contributed greatly to motivation amongst the team where previously morale (on this long-term project) had become an issue. Notwithstanding a difficult client, the results in quality are positive and the discipline is relatively easy to apply. But I do agree with your other points – fast prototyping is another term that could describe this, as was concurrent engineering from three decades past! Perhaps Agile is really just a modern flavour of something older?