Agile Reality Check

Adriana Beal has spent the last 15 years helping Fortune 100 companies, innovation companies and startups build better software that solves the right problem and aligns with business strategy. Her current focus of work is customer development and product strategy for tech startups.

  Agile   ProjectsAtWork  

A widespread fallacy is that the ability to rapidly create business value by embracing change is not possible using methods outside the agile model. The fact is, successful projects are likely to incorporate some agile principles while rejecting others. Let’s quash three common Agile myths.

As agile methods are increasingly adopted in companies of all sizes , it’s not rare to see agile frameworks being oversold in both proposed means and promised ends. No suprise, as there seems to be no end to the money to be made selling agile consulting services, tools and certifications.

Unfortunately, many project management practitioners stumble over reality on their way to the pot at the end of the Agile rainbow. To lessen the pain of that fall, here are three common myths that organizations must overcome in order to extract the most value out of their attempts to speed up the delivery of software projects using agile approaches.

Myth 1: Business analysis work is easier in an agile project because requirements don’t have to be detailed upfront

In a traditional software project, business analysis activities (the activities related to exploring and identifying business needs, prioritizing them based on risks and business goals, and determining potential solutions that fulfill those need) are heavily concentrated in the early stages of the project. The solution …

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