Tag: Kanban

Agility – Beyond Software Development

The digital technology industry has been moving at a very fast pace over the last decades. Companies that are unable to adapt have been left behind (Nokia, Kodak, etc.). Agility is a key skill for a company to remain competitive.

Since the Agile Manifesto for software development declared in 2001, several software companies have been moving towards this mindset. Some companies went further and adopted the Agile way of development in industries other than software industry.

bobdylan_2275506bIf your time to you is worth saving
Then you better start swimming, or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changing.

-Bob Dylan

Is it possible for any company to apply Agile? How about big companies, with complex organizations, top-down policies, rigid processes, over-specialized teams, and other bureaucratic burdens? And above all, what is Agile, and what is not Agile? First, let’s review the life-cycle of a product.

Product life-cycle

A product life-cycle can be broadly divided into 4 phases as shown in the figure below:

Picture5
Product Life-Cycle

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What is Agile Software Development ?

Software development is a tough process. It starts off by identifying and understanding what the user/client needs, and ends by deploying a solution that may, or may not, satisfy the user. During this journey, a group of Homo sapiens work together, organize teams, conceive plans, define tasks, rules and tools. They spend time and effort specifying, designing, programming, testing, documenting, bug fixing, etc. and hoping that they will deliver on time.

Some of those sapiens groups outperform their peers, and manage to provide high quality solutions on time. Other groups fail to deliver any solution, and waste their effort, time and resources in vain. Successful software developers (at least some of them) decided to help the others with their skills, by teaching them how they are doing Software development. This is why, on February 11th – 13th, 2001, at The Lodge at Snowbird ski resort in the Wasatch mountains of Utah, USA, seventeen Homo sapiens met to talk, ski, relax, and try to find common ground—and of course, to eat. What emerged was the Agile Software Development Manifesto.

Agile is a Software development mindset that embraces change. It is neither a process nor a model, but rather a set of values and principles. It is a flexible approach for Software development, that helps organizations to adapt fast to the market change.

Agile_Values

Processes and documentation are important, but not the main concern in Agile mindset.

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