Know agile. Not habit. (जानामि Agile न च मे प्रवृत्तिः)

“Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink”. This is a quote of ancient mariners. In most projects we see lot of effort being spent. Still there is no demo able software. Why is this happening? We are trying to use mass manufacturing techniques when the requirement is customized application. Software development is an art. Building usable software is not an easy task. Yes there are many software developers who code. But this does not result in usable software. There is a life cycle after the delivery where application takes shape. It is funny to see many times most used features are built as afterthought during enhancement. Let us see where is the waste in an application development? Life cycle of an application development: We spend lot of effort during these phases to maintain continuity. Typically there are some stages which can be avoided without big issues. Why to spend so much time in RFP and vendor selection. This can be avoided by selecting a vendor on the basis of quality...

Found a good article on why agile does not work in some cases. http://agilesoftwaredevelopment.com/blog/cspag/agile-adoption-why-isnt-stuff-working Will write soon about my experience.

Any time you mention Agile you hear it is applicable in Product development. It is true agile is used more in product development. This might be due to the reason it is easy to follow agile in product development. It is also due to product development requires more agility to compete. Let us compare few aspects of product and an application (services). Product development Software Services Requirements It is in discovery. You start with an idea and develop it. Never frozen. To survive in market need to be two steps ahead of competition. Requirements are clearer. Before the service provider comes into picture customer spends lot of time defining the requirement. Quality High quality is desired. Buggy product is not liked by any customer. Support cost is part of product price in many cases. High quality is desired but not achieved. High quality costs more. Budget There is comparatively more money ...

Agile development offers many benefits. Wherever it is followed it gives huge benefits. Still it is not used wide spread. There is lot of resistance for adapting agile. What are causing resistance? Courage: It requires courage to adapt agile. You are going to work in a environment full chaos (controlled chaos). You need to stand up for your work. You are responsible for the teams goal. You cannot escape by telling you did your part. Agile is a team work and you are responsible with the team. It is very scary for many people to describe their work. SCRUM flavor of agile has meetings every day to talk about what was done yesterday? What will be done today? and Issues to be resolved to achieve it. More than 70% in the industry cannot do this. Ego issues come into play. You are not safe till test team finds issue. You are exposed daily. But this very factor contributes to the success of the project. This brings the team closer. Non performers are forced to move out. Tea...

How a demo can improve the quality of the product. It will not be significant if the demo is at end of project. But it will improve by leaps and bounds if it done every week or two weeks. A demonstration of application is show of confidence in the product. It requires courage to stand at the center stage and show the application to customer. You need to be 100% sure things are working fine when a demo is given. This brings in a discipline of delivering what is promised. Not to over commit on delivery. This itself is a huge achievement for a project. As a customer never hesitate to ask for a demo. If a demo is planned do not skip for any reason. If you skip it you are wasting your money. Other benefits of a demo are you know what is developed and how it works. You can correct the course of the project at this stage only. If you find few things not necessary you can scrap them right away than spending more money on them. Giving a demo requires some supporting work from the ...