One of our missions at Command is to further the education, adoption, and use of agile methods. Now we’re biased, but we feel that agile, like any proven development tool or process, should have a role in your IT arsenal. Will you use agile for every project? No. Could you? Maybe. What you should understand though, is why to use agile, when to use agile, and what are the business benefits agile can deliver to your bottom line.

What is Agile?

Agile describes a family of software development methodologies based on four core values:*

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

These values guide development practices that minimize project risk through short development cycles, enhance communication, and rapidly adapt to changing business needs. The end result is a value-driven software development approach fundamentally different from the traditional “waterfall” methodology widely used today.

*Manifesto for Agile Software Development, 2001

Agile vs. Waterfall

Waterfall development attempts to divide the work of software development into phases, often with heavy paper deliverables, difficult integration efforts, and a desire to “lock down” or “freeze” requirements early in the schedule. It is not uncommon to see cycles of a year or more before ideas can be turned into working software. In contrast, agile development practices attempt to dramatically increase the throughput of business value, maximizing client ROI through the rapid release of usable functionality while providing the ability to adapt to changing requirements.

The Agile Benefits

The combination of specific agile development and management practices—synthesizing proven approaches from the industry today—results in the ability to maximize agile benefits:

• Achieve faster ROI through rapid release of business functionality.
• Adapt to changing business requirements as business experts and technologists realize the opportunities through frequent interaction.
• Enhance communication and build trust between business and IT, as project teams are able to immediately respond and demonstrate new functionality
• Reduced development risk with phased integration and continuous user feedback.
• Provide greater visibility and minimize surprises through the continuous delivery of functionality and project data that allow management to react and engage appropriately.
• Take advantage of ongoing learning. Software development is fundamentally a knowledge-acquiring as well as a product-producing activity.
• Reduce application costs for future functionality and maintenance activity. The extensive use of automated testing throughout agile development flattens the cost of change curve.

While agile practices and their benefits make intuitive sense, the challenges are determining how to incorporate agile practices into your organization and deciding which projects are the best fit.