When you
consider using agile development, only one question matters.
Will agile development help us be more successful?
* Source: various experience reports at the Extreme Programming and Agile conferences.
?? See, for example, [Van Schooenderwoert], [Mah], and [Anderson 2006].
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When you can answer that question, you??™ll know whether agile development is right for you.
Understanding Success
The traditional idea of success is delivery on time, on budget, and according to specification. [Standish]
provides some classic definitions:
Successful
???Completed on time, on budget, with all features and
functions as originally specified.???
Challenged
???Completed and operational but over budget, over the
time estimate, [with] fewer features and functions than originally specified.???
Impaired
???Cancelled at some point during the development cycle.???
Despite their popularity, there??™s something wrong with these definitions. A project can be successful
even if it never makes a dime. It can be challenged even if it delivers millions of dollars in revenue.
CIO Magazine commented on this oddity:
Projects that were found to meet all of the traditional criteria for success??”time, budget and
specifications??”may still be failures in the end because they fail to appeal to the intended users
or because they ultimately fail to add much value to the business.
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