Thursday, September 27, 2012

A dangerous development approach

When you are working in a time boxed iterative environment and before the time box has elapsed you are already self-correcting based on changing or unclear requirements, incorrect assumptions, or misunderstood goals STOP!!!!

The goal at the end of each iteration in agile is to have working code based on the design and requirements given/created at the start of that time box.  If  requirements are misunderstood or changing faster then your time box can complete, you have to re evaluate your approach by adjusting either the time box or the way in which you gather requirements and plan a design.

Common causes:

  1. Time boxing too long.
  2. Requirements too broad, or too vague!!
  3. Customer goals or business cases are not well understood.
  4. Implementation technology not well understood. 
Common cures:
  1. Break down the problems further.
  2. Shorten the time boxes and adjust goals accordingly.
  3. KNOW what the use cases are and what the customer expects (at that moment).
  4. Train on new technology in iterative cycles, just like development cycles.