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What are some situations where Agile is inappropriate?

Asked 2008-12-08T03:41:32.487
12

I have been hearing and reading about Agile for years. I own a book or two on it and I like the idea.

I am finally in a position where I could roll something like this out where I work, but I have serious concerns about whether it's the way to go for us:

  • Isn't there a minimum size for this? Big design up front must be more efficient for a three or four week project... Right?
  • Our customers usually require fixed prices. They need to know what they're dealing with, except in special cases where we are up against an obvious black hole and even then people are more comfortable with a cap. So how can you provide a quote if you're going with a process that is tolerant of ongoing requirement changes?
  • I understand that Agile may provide better odds of success in more complex projects, but won't it drive up costs to the customer? And of course there is the cost of failure to consider - perhaps we are back at the minimum size question here.
  • How in the world would you explain this counter-intuitive approach to customers? Non-technicial stakeholders might not have the experience to wrap their heads around anything beyond Waterfall.
  • Even for internal projects, there are budgets. What am I missing?
  • It seems like there is some backlash against Agile lately. Is something else going to start gaining traction soon?

Note: We are a 5 dev shop with projects ranging from a day or two all the way up to several months. I don't believe that there is one methodology to rule them all, but it would be great to find something flexible enough that we can adapt it to all of our projects.

Thanks a lot!

Brian MacKay

agile methodology software-design
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2 Answers

7

the simple solution has 2 steps:

  1. don't estimate costs and schedules for projects, estimate costs and schedules for features
  2. measure and record enough information to calculate your velocity and estimation errors

start small and in-house if possible to get some base numbers. If you still want to do 'big up-front design', do it for individual features. This will help your initial estimates be more accurate, and also what granularity of 'feature' you are comfortable with.

Note: this will only work if the customer is committed to do their part, namely, to be highly available to the developers (to answer questions, write stories and test descriptions, et al), and to not change their mind during an iteration

good luck with your transition, and let us know how it goes!

answered 2008-12-08T04:23:33.650
6

By far the biggest contraindication I've seen is a values mismatch. Extreme Programming relies on respect, communication, feedback, courage, and simplicity. In an organization that behaves based on incompatible values, applying XP will cause friction and won't result in any lasting change (IME).

answered 2008-12-08T18:14:22.617

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