Sunday, March 13, 2011

Agile Principle 2: Embrace Change

Let's take a look at the second underlying principle of the agile manifesto:
"Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage."
What does that really mean? What are the implications for our daily business? Let's analyze this principle and see where this gets us.
  • "Welcome" - creates a positive and open feeling/invitation.
    Values: Openness, Respect
    Principles: Opportunity, Humanity
    Practices: Sprint Planning, Planning Game
  • "changing requirements" - do not take any requirement granted as reality is not a static system. People, markets, demands, all things in general are in a constant flow and change. We have to accept this in every aspect of our work.
    Values: Openness, Courage
    Principles: See the whole, Reversible changes during development, Adaption
    Practices: Real Customer Involvement, Product Backlog, Sprint Review
  • "even late in development" - there is no valid time to fix a set of requirements even if the project's end is a few weeks in the future. Things may change at any time.
    Values: Openness, Courage
    Principles: Decide as late as possible, Opportunity
    Practices: Real Customer Involvement, Product Backlog, Sprint Review, Planning Game
  • "Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage" - As in the first principle (Satisfy the Customer) our goal is to help and serve the customer/user. Let the customer always be the center of everything we do.
    Values: Openness, Commitment, Focus
    Principles: Mutual Benefit, Opportunity, Economics
    Practices: Frequent Delivery, Sprint Review, Product Backlog, Real Customer Involvement
In summary we have to be open to any changes and need the courage to help the customer adopting to these changes. To say it in two words, the second principle is about Embrace Change.


Also read in this blog post series:

1 comment:

  1. As one former client and senior IT architect said to me as he prepared to spend a considerable amount of money on a project field service software 

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.