Agile Development Myths...Busted!

Agile development is a popular and effective methodology in IT and software development. But there are several misconceptions about Agile that come from a lack of understanding of the process. Here are five myths about Agile Development…busted:

1. Agile is a new methodology. Agile is not new; in fact, it is more than a decade old. The Agile Manifesto was published in 2001.
2. There is no documentation in Agile. A common belief about Agile is that it doesn’t require documentation. You can have as much, or as little, documentation as you’d like in Agile Development. Valuable documentation should be scheduled and developed like other products in the process. Because most documents remain unread or fail to communicate, most Agile teams prefer to communicate face-to-face.
3. There is no planning in Agile. The belief that there is no planning in Agile is completely inaccurate: Agile actually requires a lot of planning. But rather than planning at the beginning of the project, Agile follows an incremental approach for initial high-level plans and iterations at a lower level as more knowledge is gathered during the process.
4. All work must fit in a Sprint. It’s not necessary to always abide by the rule to complete work within the Sprint. Agile experts advise teams to let stories span Sprints to improve flow. It’s okay to have Sprint-spanning stories, as long as they don’t continue forever. Limit them to three sprints and try to break up the sprints into smaller pieces of work.
5. Agile cannot work in fixed-deadline environments. Actually, Agile does work for fixed-deadline projects. Agile teams can benefit from deadlines. Using Agile in fixed-deadline projects can help size work to the deadline, motivate individual team members, and prepare for renegotiation of what needs to be done to meet the deadline.

What other myths have you heard about Agile development? Leave a comment below or tweet us at @ShinetechUS.

Photo credit: Micky Aldridge