Agile principles

I’ve just been reading this article

and I agree with pretty much all of it. Just two things to add:

The author (unknown, 2016, Gil Broza I think) writes:

For instance, in millions of IT projects the important things are usually these:

• Make early commitments (= promise what will be done by when and for how much)
• Get it right the first time (= there’s really only one go-live)
• Deliver on time and on budget (= that’s what success means and requires)
• Use standardized processes (= they should yield success as long as the workers are skilled)

“When these are your values, the Waterfall principles are the sensible way to approach work. You would want to make a plan and follow it closely, and use proven practices for managing the work and the workers”.

“In a different situation, other things might be more important to you: putting people first, adaptation, delivering value early and frequently, and continuous collaboration with your customer. If these are paramount for you, the “inspect and adapt”, empowered team, and take-small-steps elements of the Agile approach follow naturally”.

and I wanted to say, when would you NOT want:

• Make early commitments (= promise what will be done by when and for how much)
• Get it right the first time (= there’s really only one go-live)
• Deliver on time and on budget (= that’s what success means and requires)

….and then the only other point, he mentions the principles of both approaches:

Some of the Waterfall principles are:

• Plan the work and work the plan
• Limit change
• Sign-off
• People are resources
• Maximize worker utilization
• Hub and spokes

Some of the Agile principles are:

• Team self-organization
• Collaboration
• Sustainable pace
• Feedback
• Continuous improvement

I just wanted to correct his list slightly, to:

Some of the Waterfall principles are:

• Plan the work and work the plan
• Limit change
• Sign-off
• People are resources
• Maximize worker utilization
• Hub and spokes
• Collaboration
• Sustainable pace
• Feedback
• Continuous improvement

it’s irritating to read that proper Project Management doesn’t have collaboration, sustainable pace, feedback or continuous improvement – of course it has all of these, we’re not stupid.

But overall, thanks for a good article, Mr Anonymous Agile Man.