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Agile Implementation
Entering a New World
What exactly is Agile? What does it mean and stand for?Read more…
Ravi Warrier
 
ravi@raviwarrier.name
August, 2007
 
Introduction
The intent of this document is to help readers understand “Agile methods” and how to change thephilosophies of existing traditional software development and align them to the agile movement.While the agenda of the agile movement is clearly defined by various groups in terms of values’,principles’ and practices’ definition; it is not very clear with respect to selecting the right approach toadopt.This document will try and propose an objective approach to decide what the right agile methodologyfor your organization is.
Creating a Model
 
Figure 1: Evolution
Identifying the Intent
As with any paradigm shift, the first task is to understand the reason for the shift. It could be just one ora matrix of reasons that would make an organization or project teams want to change the way theywork. Irrespective of the count, it is important to go deep into these reasons since these reasons willfurther down model the approach that is best suited to the execution of the project.The way to do this is similar to a typical task of analyzing business or delivery problems. One needs toidentify what are the key areas that raise most concerns. Categorizing them into buckets such as‘Customer Satisfaction’, ‘Requirements Management’, ‘Quality of Deliverables’, ‘Meeting Deadlines’, etchelps.
Practice(s)Principle(s)Value(s)Intent
 
 Asking the right questions is really important here as without the direction the questions (and answersto them) provide, narrowing down and coming up with key problems would become a difficultendeavor.These questions might help you gain perspective:
•
 
How many times has this problem occurred (in a defined period)?
•
 
Has this problem caused us to stop on or deviate significantly from our proposed path?
•
 
How much has this problem cost us (quantified as money units)?
•
 
Is this problem likely to occur again?
•
 
What is the real cause of this problem?
•
 
Is it something we can fix?Based on the answers to the above questions, you will be able to judge which of the problems havebeen a real pain in the neck for your project(s). By doing this exercise, you will also realize the root causeof the problem, which in turn becomes one of the intent (key reasons) that attribute to the need toadopt an existing delivery model or create a new one.
Identify the Right Values
Agile values define the beliefs that are most important for developing software. In brief, these stronglycorrelate to the four-fold philosophy of the Agile Manifesto:
 
Individuals and interactions
over
 processes and tools
 (value: communication)
,
 
Working software
over
comprehensive documentation
(value: simplicity)
,
 
Customer collaboration
over
contract negotiation
(value: feedback)
and
 
Responding to change
over
 following a plan
(value: courage)
.All the intents identified earlier can be attributed to one of the values that are mentioned above. Andeach agile value has a set of principles and practices that extend it.
Selecting Principles
This is the easy part of this tumultuous journey. It’s a straight road ahead until the next bend.Agile Manifesto has laid down 12 principles
1
 
1
See Appendix A
based on the four philosophies (or values) mentionedabove. Each of the twelve principles may satisfy one or more values. And it is not rocket science to mapeach of the principles to related values. For example, the following principles satisfy (either directly ornot) the agile value “Communication”. Remember, this can be entirely different based on yourexperiences.
of 00

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