Applitude

Traditional plan-driven methods focus on keeping to the timetable. Agile methodologies focus on consistently delivering maximum business value. New information and knowledge about a problem are more valuable; therefore, Agile methodologies encourage change and try to make changing requirements and systems less painful. If new knowledge is better let’s adapt and not stick to a plan that is not based on that knowledge. To do this, you need to adapt some practices; otherwise you face too many risks. For example, you need to do a lot of automated tests to validate there are no new bugs.

Don’t Waste Money on Features Never Used

If you’re working with the waterfall model and are in the requirement capture phase, tell the stakeholders, “Give me all your requirements now or it will cost you much more later if you change your mind”. Not planning everything from the start will entail additional costs later. The next phase is the design phase and all required drawings of what’s to be built are produced. If new things are learned during the construction phase, going back and changing EVERYTHING becomes too expensive for the customer. So what does the poor customer do? He tells them everything he might need for fear of not getting what he wants. In a 2002 report from The Standish Group, an investigation was made into failed projects to see how much the built-in features were used. They found that 20% of the features were used either always or often. The interesting part was that 45% of the features were never used. There could be many explanations for why features are never used in a system or product. But if you ask stakeholders to give you all the requirements up front, you end up with a lot of things that will never be used. If you deliver work in small pieces and work first on the first priority and also allow stakeholders to re-prioritize work, this problem can be addressed.