Changing the way a business operates is a daunting task. It involves assessing and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the current organization, identifying solutions to the weaknesses without compromising the strengths and, ultimately, changing the way people work. Above all, people tend to be resistant to change — and this is the most common issue that arises when adopting a new methodology.
Agile methods are powerful tools when used properly — but as with all tools, they can be misused. The critics of agile methods are many and vocal, calling Agile a poorly thought-out “shortcut” that fails to get the job done. And with 90% of projects failing to meet objectives, the criticism is valid. So is Agile just hype or is there something to it? And if there is, why are project success ratios so abysmal? Here’s the scoop on why Agile doesn’t work and what to do about it.
Qualitative decisions often lose out to quantitative decisions. Every one of us lives this every day, quite often without realizing that we are doing it. It’s not enough to define our process or methodology and let it settle in. Yes, we absolutely need to have a clearly defined and adopted set of processes and procedures. But at the same time, it’s important to never let it become too rote.
People have lost sight of the fact that Scrum is not a methodology. I see comments such as “Scrum is killing agile” and it drives home, with emphasis, that there’s a huge disconnect between understanding what an agile methodology is and what Scrum is (and I know I’m beating a dead horse, but it’s important [...]
Scrum can be remarkably beneficial in many kinds of software projects. But, as with any process, methodology or management technique, when used inappropriately it can cause more problems that it solves. In this article I’ll discuss some of the common misconceptions and “lessons learned” as related to Scrum.