How do you align refactoring goals and strategies with agile principles and values?

2 Refactoring as a feedback

Another key value of agile is to welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Refactoring can help you embrace this value by making your code more flexible and easier to modify. Refactoring can also help you incorporate feedback from customers, users, and stakeholders, as well as from your own team and tools. By refactoring your code based on feedback, you can improve its functionality, usability, and alignment with business goals.

3 Refactoring as a collaboration

A third essential value of agile is to promote collaboration among team members and with customers. Refactoring can support this value by facilitating communication and coordination within your team and across teams. Refactoring can also help you share knowledge, skills, and best practices among developers, testers, and other roles. By refactoring your code collaboratively, you can ensure its consistency, quality, and readability.

4 Refactoring as a learning

A fourth important value of agile is to foster a culture of learning and continuous improvement. Refactoring can enable this value by allowing you to experiment with new ideas, techniques, and technologies. Refactoring can also help you learn from your mistakes, failures, and successes, as well as from your peers and mentors. By refactoring your code as a learning opportunity, you can enhance your skills, knowledge, and creativity.

5 Refactoring as a practice

To align your refactoring goals and strategies with agile principles and values, you need to adopt refactoring as a regular practice, not a one-time event or a last-minute fix. Refactoring should be part of your daily work, integrated with your coding, testing, and deployment activities. You should also plan, prioritize, and track your refactoring tasks, using tools like code analysis, code reviews, and technical debt management.

6 Refactoring as a balance

Finally, to align your refactoring goals and strategies with agile principles and values, you need to find a balance between refactoring and delivering value to customers and stakeholders. Refactoring should not be done at the expense of meeting deadlines, budgets, and expectations. Nor should it be neglected or postponed in favor of adding new features or fixing bugs. You should refactor your code as much as necessary, but not more than necessary, to achieve your product's vision and goals.