Agile Practices - Unleashed!!

Hey Folks,

I know i am writing this article after a while but trust me i was practicing all the below agile concepts while i was at work for past few weeks.

So when we work in an agile mode then things go pretty fast and agile practitioners are often accused of not building documentation during the project executions. But things change possibly each day and at each sprint review (this term may sound like an alien right now, but will make more sense as we become more agile "together"), so preparing documentations may not seems to be a good practice in such dynamicity.

Let's start by giving general overview of how Agile practices overlay that of waterfall as we have all grown up in those times when waterfall was the only way of executing projects in long scale timelines.

INDIVIDUALS & INTERACTIONS over Processes & Tools

In agile approach every member of the team is empowered to take up any role at any stage of the delivery. Hence there can be no flexible and adaptive processes than agile.

So rather than depending on well defined processes to deliver and drive the incremental deliveries to customer, its the members of the team who are the real contributors and driving force in effective reviews along with customer collaboration.

Agile has some well defined tools as Scrum in it but overall its the adaptive approach of Agile methodology which defines the tag-team working model.

WORKING SOFTWARE over Comprehensive Documentation

Relying too much on documentation may often lead to miscommunication on requirements. Hence incremental reviews and delivery of pieces of software is more effective in opening the minds of customers at periodic intervals.

Agile is more a customer collaborative approach which intends to deliver working parts of software so that the customer can understand the systems more effectively and can come up with more ideas which aligns to their business processes.

Long story short -"No surprises for customer at the end of movie!!"

CUSTOMER COLLABORATION over Contract Negotiation

Uncertain environments can often lead to more budget and expectations that can be difficult to handle. Hence drafting a high level requirements initially and then working and shaping them over a period of time as project progresses can being some decisive approach.

It also instills confidence among customer and makes him an effective part to the project. On-time sprint reviews and continuously taking feedbacks from client help them understand the system more better.

RESPONDING TO CHANGE over Following a Plan

Here comes the most interesting part of Agile which says that customer can take a deflection in middle of the path (but not a U-Turn). During the initial waterfall model approach it was difficult or even next to impossible for customers to change their requirements after having a look at the final result.

And we should all accept the fact that when several brains are pit together in something then there is bound to be different "point-of-views" and then there are changes which are desirable.

However, considering them at the earliest is better for the project and for the confidence of customer which can see the parts being assembled together from time-to-time.

Stay tuned for upcoming articles....

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