From time to time, I discuss the agile methodology with clients and friends. The Agile Manifesto was published at http://agilemanifesto.org about 12 years ago. It was debated a lot and the debates still are going on. I try present here a small inside I had during the last years.
The main statement is
“Manifesto for Agile Software Development
We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more.”
Interestingly, the focus is shifted from the product, its documentation and the technical process (the planning) to customer focus and customer satisfaction. This is also part of another system which is called Total Quality Management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_quality_management). The focus shift is very obvious and necessary, when we think about the only income source each company has: The customer. The customer (or different customers if an organization has different services to offer) is the only source for income and therefore for revenue, profit and growth. Any revenue increase can only happen, when customers pay more for services or products or more customers are willing to spend money on the companies services or products. It is therefore obvious, that the focus needs to be on the customer and that the organization needs to be aligned to meet the needs and expectations of customers.
That’s why the first point about ‘Individuals and interactions’ is the most important point. Translated to easy actions it means: Identify your customers, treat them individually and implement processes for easy communication and interaction. Only customers can tell you what they need, what they expect and what they are ready to pay for. Individual customers treated well, will tell you more detailed, what they need and bring new business ideas. Ask a group of people and there is no detail. But, ask a single individuals and listen closely. You might get a lot of insights.
In software development the main reason of organizations is delivery working software and systems. These are the primary needs of their customers. They do not need a fancy manual to read, what the software might be able to do after spending hours to read the manual and trying things out in tutorials, but they need a software which brings business value. That’s why the second point is important. Have a running, valuable software which is self-explanatory and the customer is willing to pay for it. You can save a tree by dropping the printed documentation. Have a look to Apple products. How much manuals are sold with this complex and feature rich software? Some only help and a self-explanatory UI and everything is fine. This is one of the fundamentals of Total Quality Management: Only the customer can tell you what she wants and she is also the one who pays. Is there another way to work with the knowledge?
The third point is the enhancement of the first point. If the chance is there, try to work with your customer closely together. In Scrum and XP it is done by short release cycles and demos to show the customer progress on regular basis after each release cycle and ask for critics, comments and new ideas. It helps to deliver software which is valuable for the customer and therefore, which is paid for. An even better idea is to embed a representative of the customer into the development team. The responses are immediate and customer’s acceptance testing is done the whole time. The possibility of developing software for what the customer does not want to pay, is reduced dramatically. And again: The customers pays for the product. There is no way to make a better product than to build the product together with your customer and when the customer is part of the team, she is even more engaged and willing to help for development. At the very end, the willing to pay is much higher, when the product was kind of custom built.
By doing all this, be prepared: With each demo, feedback session and communication to the customer, there might be new ideas, comments and critics. The requirements are about to change on daily basis. That’s what the fourth value is about. Be open for changes. Customer only have vague idea at the beginning, about what they want. But, during the development, more ideas arise, some faulty ideas are dropped and new wishes pop up. That’s kind of normal and part of the process. This helps to make the product better at the end and the business value is increased. A product like that can be priced higher, though. What is better than that?
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