Index

Agile has been a buzzword, particularly in software development, for the last twenty years. In fact, it almost feels that the last two decades have been characterised by a tennis-like back and forth of boards telling each other ‘we need to be more Agile’ followed by CEO’s proclaiming publicly ‘our company is Agile!’ Of course, what they’re actually referring to (whether consciously or not!) are the Agile methodologies; an approach to software delivery as characterised by the 4 values of the now infamous Agile Manifesto:

But what does that really mean? Well, Agile can be viewed more as a ‘culture’ than anything else. Born as a reaction to the traditional and admittedly somewhat rigid Waterfall approach to managing projects, which prioritises linearly completing one phase at a time, fixing the scope as early as possible and minimising changes, Agile champions flexibility and adaptability. It’s characterised by iterative and incremental development, continuous feedback, and close collaboration between development teams and stakeholders. Sounds pretty good right?

If you think so, you’re certainly not alone. In fact, according to the ‘Agile Adoption Statistics’ 2020, 71% of business across a range of sectors including Software, IT, Finance and HR have ‘adopted agile’, with the top 3 reasons cited as being the desire to increase productivity and accelerate product delivery, and to achieve the speed and flexibility required by unpredictable and volatile environments.

You’re probably wondering how companies seek to go about doing this once they’ve declared themselves as Agile. For many, it simply means implementing an Agile framework. Some decide to use Kanban boards, where teams physically move each task or user story through each phase of the work process, allowing them to visualise and manage work in progress, and identify bottlenecks and optimise workflows. For others, it means implementing Scrum ceremonies, with daily stand-ups, sprints and retrospectives. If you’re doing all that, you MUST be implementing agile like a boss, right? Well, perhaps not…

Just because you’re ‘doing’ Agile, it doesn’t mean you actually are Agile… Remember, it isn’t about completing a set of ceremonies or techniques and processes, bur rather a culture built on aligned core values and principles of authenticity, collaboration, adaptability that promote frequent product solutions and releases, tight and constructive feedback cycles, continuous improvement, and customer satisfaction. If it sounds a bit vague, well, it is… but let’s take a look at who is really living a culture of agile to help us understand how we can apply this in practice.

Spotify is often held up as the ‘poster boy’ of a company with a successful Agile culture. In fact, they are actually applying SAFe, or the Scaled Agile Framework, which is essentially Agile scaled to enterprise level rather than just project level. This is done by applying several principles, including maximising economy, applying systems thinking to all the interconnected component parts and not losing the bigger picture, building fast with integrated learning cycles whilst preserving options in order to counteract the uncertainty of the environment, realistic and achievable milestones determined by natural cadences, motivating intrinsically workers, and decentralising decision making. Essentially, teams are autonomous and workers are empowered to find solutions, make decisions, and contribute tangibly to the end product. Spotify achieves this through a model that champions flexibility, and allows teams to manage themselves in the way they see fit, actually seeking to minimise the number of ceremonies. The organisation is formed of a range of small teams, called squads, numbers of which make up larger groups called tribes, and alliances, where different tribes work together. Groups that oversee decisions are TRIOs, made up of a tribe lead, product lead and design lead. Then, there are Guilds, entirely voluntary and based on personal interest, and allow for cross-pollination, or the sharing of ideas, amongst teams that don’t work with each other. In this way they have achieved a workforce that feels empowered to contribute and find innovative solutions, isn’t afraid to try and fail and use this feedback to learn, and ultimately loves coming to work.

IBM, among many others, are applying a hyped-up version of Agile called Extreme Programming, known as XP. XP takes the agile principles even further by working on a basis of communication, and in particular face-to-face communication, simplicity, feedback, courage and respect. In practice, for many companies such as IBM this means allowing developers to ‘pair programme’ i.e. sit next to their work buddy and program together to produce more innovative results, and to be brave enough to reduce the requirement to the ‘simplest thing that will work’. In this way, more focused and less buggy software is released more quickly, achieving what it needs to for the client, with additional features added frequently and quickly.

I imagine at this point you’re chomping at the bit to get started with nurturing your Agile culture. But actually the real question is not how should you do it, but should you do it at all?

In reality, using an Agile approach to deliver your product requires a certain level of organisational maturity and a strong culture of collaboration, and potentially investment in training and coaching, which can be challenging for small organisations with limited resources. It’s often not easily implementable in companies that have a hierarchical structure or traditional relationships between stakeholders, as the level of autonomy to be given to teams, the degree of transparency and trust required for bottom-up decision making and the obtaining of appropriate client feedback isn’t always possible in this type of environment.

As Agile prioritises responding to change over following a plan, the approach may be effective for small and simple projects with clear and well-defined requirements, but may not be suitable for mission-critical software delivery projects which may require a more structure and discipline. Complex projects may require more upfront planning and analysis, or strict regulatory compliance in need of formal and rigorous testing processes, all of which can be challenging to reconcile with an Agile culture.

Thirdly, Agile methodologies require a high degree of customer involvement and feedback. This approach may not be appropriate for all software delivery projects, particularly those with a limited number of end-users or projects with strict regulatory compliance requirements. These types of projects may require a more formal and rigorous testing and validation process, which may not be compatible with the rapid prototyping and iterative development approach of agile methodologies.

Additionally, Agile methodologies require a high degree of team autonomy and self-management. This approach may be challenging for organisations with a hierarchical or traditional management structure, where decisions are made top-down. Additionally, Agile methodologies require a high degree of trust between team members and stakeholders, which may be difficult to establish in organisations with a history of mistrust or lack of transparency. If your workplace isn’t the right environment to nurture agile teams, it’s like trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. Yup, I’m saying it could be better to just give up, and look for something else.

Waterfall Methodology is a linear and sequential approach to software development, based on a more traditional style of project management often used in other industries. It’s based on a series of phases, including requirements gathering, design, development, testing, and deployment. Each phase must be completed before moving on to the next, and follows the assumption that the requirements for a project are fixed and will not change significantly during development. This approach can be beneficial for projects with well-defined requirements and a fixed scope, such as building a bridge or constructing a building.

The downsides are that it can be challenging to estimate the time and cost of a project accurately, and that it also requires a high degree of planning and documentation upfront, which can be time-consuming and costly. However, despite being much demonised for those points, waterfall offers a lot of advantages, including a clear structure, ease of management, thorough documentation, and reduced risk for the development company, as costs associated with vast changes in scope can be pushed back on to the client easily. Until recently, CISCO used a waterfall approach with the major part of its business, with great success.

Lean Startup is based on the principles of lean manufacturing and emphasises rapid experimentation and continuous improvement. It’s focused on creating a minimum viable product (MVP) and then testing and iterating on that product until it meets customer needs. One of the key benefits of Lean Startup is that it puts real users and data-based decisions at its heart. It uses validated learning, i.e. using data and feedback from customers, to inform decisions.

Lean Startup methodology is based on five core principles:

However, there are also some potential disadvantages to using Lean Startup methodology. It can be challenging to create an MVP that meets customer needs while still being viable from a business perspective. As with Agile, Lean Startup also requires a high degree of collaboration between team members, which can be challenging for remote or distributed teams.

One organisation that utilised the Lean Startup approach very effectively is DropBox — in fact, they signed up 5,000 users before having a real product to offer, they invited feedback on their idea, and then used that feedback to transition their product into something truly valuable to its customers. In some cases, business pivot away from their original idea entirely after having learned what their market really wants.

DevOps is still considered the ‘new kid on the block’ to some extent, but it gained enough traction to be considered a methodology in around 2007. It is designed around building, testing and releasing software quickly, ensuring enhanced results and continuous delivery through its underlying fundamental principles of process automation and use of advanced tools and practices to combine IT operations with software development. Whilst all this means reducing repetitive tasks for developers, a better work environment with improved quality and the space to innovate, the downsides are also pronounced. What DevOps really means and how to implement it is still ambiguous, finding professionals who are familiar with the methodology is a challenge, and it often involves a high cost and a lot of complexity in adopting it. The DevOps approach is used by companies such as Netflix and Amazon, relying on their programmers to make small but frequent adjustments to their services, with frequent and automated monitoring and testing of all changes.

All well and good, but sometimes when choosing a methodology, it’s best to start with what NOT to do. For example, making a selection based solely on its popularity, or without understanding its principles and practices are both extremely common errors, and without a proper understanding of a methodology, it’s impossible to implement it effectively.

The third mistake people tend to make is failing to consider the project’s specific requirements. Different methodologies have different strengths and weaknesses. It is important to choose a methodology that is appropriate for the specific requirements of the project. It is important to consider how the methodology fits into the overall development process and how it will interact with other tools and techniques. Failure to consider this can lead to conflicts and inefficiencies.

Perhaps the biggest mistake of all, however, is failing to adapt the methodology to the project’s unique characteristics. While a methodology may provide a framework for delivering software, it is important to adapt it to the specific needs of the project. This may include modifying the process, tools, and techniques to fit the project’s requirements. Failure to adapt the methodology can lead to inefficiencies and suboptimal outcomes, delays, cost overruns, even complete failure of the project.

As we’ve seen, fundamentally, there is no ‘best’ methodology or framework, only those that are best suited to facilitating the delivery of whatever it is you need to achieve. So, what do you need to do before going about choosing one?

Based on these answers, we can start to form an idea of what could work best for us. For example, if the project is large and rigid, with a fixed scope and deadline, it may be that a waterfall approach is best. Changes are not expected, and therefore there needs to be a cost involved with them. If your goal is to get to market quickly with a reduced level of risk, and you have sufficient money and expertise to set up complex processes and automations and implement intelligent metrics, then DevOps could be for you.

In order to help, we’ve created a decision tree chart that hopefully supports the understanding of these different methodologies and their pros and cons, and which questions to ask yourself at every step of the way

For each red dot, assign yourself 1 point. Yellow dots = 2, orange dots = 3, green dots = 4, and dark green dots = 5. Then, add up the number of points you have, and check your score below:

The key takeaways are:

And that’s it! I hope you’ve enjoyed this article, and it’s prompted you to have a look at all the weird and wonderful methodologies and frameworks out there.

Happy PM-ing!

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