AGILE is FRAGILE......!
I was
recently talking to a Product Manager of a multi-national company who visited India for a few days..
'We are
re-creating and re-launching my product'
He told me in quite an upbeat tone.
'What do
you mean?'
'You know the product I manage...we had end of
life'ed it last year...the
technology is pretty old...so now we are working on creating a new product with
pretty much the same features with better
GUI etc. and more important, using new
technologies'
'That
sounds interesting...'
'Oh...it is
...our version one is due next fall and we have so much to do...' He was definitely
relishing the challenge.Obviously...your previous product evolved over ten to twelve years and had tons of features...' Having been in similar situations, I knew exactly what the guy had been facing.
'That is true ...but in version one due next year,
we are only putting in the bare minimum capabilities.... features which are
pretty fundamental to any product in this market...so no rocket science
there...We have hired a small development team in India...mostly young enthusiastic
guys from IITs with 2-3 years experience '
'So you
have the specs pretty much written down and shoved down their throat already?'
'Not
exactly...we are following Agile
methodology for development - you know... Scrum..'
'What?!' I
exclaimed.
'Why are
you surprised? Our organization demands us to use Scrum for all development'
'Why do you
use Agile when you have an 'open and shut' case on requirements, do not have
any role for the customer in version one and to top it all, the development is
done by a bunch of inexperienced engineers?' I asked.
'What has
all that to do with Agile and Scrum?' He got aggressively defensive.
'Because Agile could break your product development with
the conditions above. I would have
suggested some form of waterfall
with an iterative approach thrown in, for your version one...'
'What do
you mean?'
'My
friend, Scrum is not a panacea for all
problems. AGILE IS FRAGILE when used in the wrong places...' I rested my case.
posted by Dr. Ashok Kallarakkal at 6:33 AM
2 Comments:
Great Article, pointing out how the Right solution is applied to the Wrong Problem/Situation.
Would like to speak with you about your experiences.
Agree. This is a case where agile has gone too far. Probably better to spec and design the whole thing and deliver in parts. My guess is we don't know the whole story behind this decision.
We are launching a product called specmyapp.com this week - a place where a business user can spec the entire application without worrying about programming - writing use cases, wireframing etc. Hopefully tools like this will swing the pendulum back to reason.
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