Sharing the light | Agile Under Waterfall

[Perry_1]

Hi, I have recently started sharing resources that I've found useful with the rest of the software development community.

This week's is a Microsoft video on how best to do Agile under waterfall management. I hope you enjoy :)

http://perrygollo.azurewebsites.net/?p=301

[rubberman]

Agile, in my opinion, is just the hot process of the day. Not much more useful than the outdated waterfall technique. We use it at my company, but it doesn't get any more work done than the less "structured" methods we used in my previous position (principal engineer in a tier-one software company). Combining Agile with waterfall? A road to disaster, IMO!

[deceptikon]

We use it at my company, but it doesn't get any more work done than the less "structured" methods we used in my previous position

Agile is a buzzword for a red tape process. The more red tape you have, the longer it takes to get shit done, regardless of the processes involved. Personally, I like Agile, but only use as little of it as possible to ease cooperation among the development team and end user. Any more than that and you're just slowing projects down with unnecessary crap.

[Perry_1]

There is indeed something to be said against adopting the latest methodology "du jour".
Agile has actually been around for a long time, and the founders I think were trying to instill some common sense into software development - does it make sense to have shorter iterations of development? Yes. Does it make sense to get the product to the user quicker so you can get feedback sooner, and incorporate it into your next release? Yes. Does it make sense to have well structured requirements that can be easily prioritised and sized? Yes. Where I think we might have gone wrong is when we jump on the band-wagon and adopt a methodology without first analysing the unique business challenges that we're trying to solve, and how agile/lean/xxxx can address them (or not).