One of our developers, Russ (a kind and fascinating genius of a man who loves to snowboard and worked under Steve Jobs in the 1990s), recently wrote about why agile software development can be ideal.
Here's what Russ has to say about agile (originally posted here):
In the world of Software Development, stories reign. They are essential to the process because they represent the customer's idea translated into a more technical language for developers to build upon. Building and deploying software is a complicated business. Historically, the industry has a rather poor success rate delivering working software, much less something the customer actually wanted. People's perceptions often differ even on simple things, so it's easy to imagine the gap that exists between technical programmers and a business customer when it comes to the complex matter of expressing that idea in a language that enables warm bits of silicon to bring it to life on a display.
Bridging that gap is a difficult job that requires a skilled, master communicator, mind reader, savant, who possesses leadership, levity and unwavering drive. Someone who will ask the tough questions and yet encourage both the customer and developers. When this job is done well, the bridge is a superhighway for informative ideas that establish a collaborative team and create great apps. When its falls short of superhero abilities, the result is something akin to a tattered footbridge made of old, weathered rope.
Agile was established by a group of software developers on a quest to solve a common industry premise of the time: THERE MUST BE A BETTER WAY TO WRITE GOOD SOFTWARE FOR OUR CUSTOMERS. What they created for us was the concise and subtly powerful Manifesto for Agile Software Development.
"We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more."
Agile is flexible. It's an adaptive, modern construct for developing software that the customer wants. It doesn't prescribe a certain process, but it does work well with other practices like iterative development, incremental development, Scrum and more. Agile is what you make it.
If you value the principles in the Manifesto, you are Agile, your customer is engaged in the regular process of scheduling and refining stories, and receiving working software that delivers on those stories. So why build agile software? Important stuff changes all the time -- make that work for your customer.
