At its core, agile is a set of principles originally developed for software teams. It values individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, responding to change over following a rigid plan. The goal is to deliver value to customers by breaking up large projects into small, manageable tasks, enabling teams to remain flexible.
Because of its cultural importance in the tech industry, many teams now claim to be agile when, in reality, they only adopt parts of the framework, like daily stand-ups or working in two-week sprints. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, as the ultimate goal is to find a process that best helps the team achieve its business objectives and product roadmap.
While adapting agile principles often leads to a successful development process, it’s not a universal solution. There are instances where the pure form of agile — or a hybrid version — may or may not be the best fit due to budget constraints, industry regulations or market realities.
What is Agile Methodology?
Agile is a software development framework that focuses on faster development by breaking down projects into small manageable iterations and working in two-week sprints. The approach is used by development teams to promote flexibility, collaboration and continuous improvement.
Benefits of Agile Project Management
There are some indisputable benefits of agile methodology, especially for SaaS applications. Constant iteration enables dev and product teams to focus on delivering a better user experience while improving team collaboration and product quality. At the end of the day, agile project management can also have tangible benefits such as:
- Being less expensive than traditional development.
- Focusing on process optimization and innovation.
- Encouraging constant feedback and continuous improvement.
- Flexibility to pivot quickly, without “wasting” time and resources on failures.
There are more benefits too, which is why so many teams live and die on the agile hill. More on Agile
When Is Agile the Best Solution
Agile became a leading product development methodology because it thrives in project environments that follow a few core principles, including flexibility, feedback and iteration. While it is important to know its limitations, its benefits are undeniable in the right context.
You’ll find Agile is the ideal approach when:
Project Requirements are Evolving
Agile works well in dynamic development environments where the final product is not fully known at the outset. For startups entering the market, teams building innovative software or projects facing tough competition, the ability to adapt to new information can be beneficial. Agile development allows teams to start from a core concept and build upon it rather than being locked into a rigid plan.
Cost of Iteration is Low
Agile can greatly benefit most SaaS companies along with mobile and web platforms. With modern cloud infrastructure and continuous iteration pipelines, pushing out updates to users can be done quickly and inexpensively. This low cost makes two-week sprints and frequent releases highly effective for testing new ideas and delivering value incrementally.
Continuous Feedback is Available
Agile is built on collecting frequent feedback between the development and end-users. Thus, it is most powerful when teams can quickly gather and analyze user data such as analytics, A/B testing or user interviews. The feedback loop can confirm what’s working and highlights what isn’t, allowing the product team to make data-driven decisions and pivot without wasting significant resources.
When Not to Use Agile
In order for agile to make sense, first, the cost of change needs to be quite low. Second, you need to be able to gather feedback from users in a timely manner. And third, you need the opportunity to be retrospective — to look at the system you’re building and analyze what’s working.
In many cases, these three requirements are not met, and so it’s necessary to explore non-agile options of development. Here are some possible scenarios where that might happen.
Iteration or Deployment Costs Are High
Iterations occur every two-weeks in a standard agile environment, but this requires iterations to be inexpensive, which is not always the case.
One example might be hardware integrations.
If you have a software component for a piece of hardware, you have to take into account the components of the hardware and build the factory around it. If you switch components, then you must rebuild your factory, which is not cost-effective.
Similarly, if the hardware is not connected to the internet (for example, an electronic bike or medical device), then deployment costs are high. Choosing to deploy often will leave users fragmented on different versions of the same software, increasing the costs associated with supporting those users.
One more example is anything that requires approval from government agencies, like the Food and Drug Administration. Any changes made after an FDA approval will require another round of approval, which is incredibly time-consuming and expensive.
What to Do Instead: While not ideal, your product team will need to strategically build a product roadmap that considers iteration and deployment restrictions. Measuring the success of an annual update, for example, is difficult and can blur return on investment (ROI) calculations. In cases like these, you’ll need to create an iteration and deployment process that serves your team and product.
You Can’t Gather Timely Feedback
The idea of feedback is useful, but if it’s too expensive, then it’s not able to fit into an agile process.
Take the electronic bike example again. Because purchase patterns and use cases are so scattered, you might not be able to collect timely or consistent feedback.
What to Do Instead: Ask yourself if there are proxies for the customer. Can you build and run an automated test? Is there a simulation you can run based on the hardware’s chemistry? Tests and simulations can certainly help you gather productive feedback on your software’s experience.
You Can’t Be Retrospective
Even in pure agile environments, retrospectives aren’t easy.
People can be dishonest or complacent, going through the motions without providing any real insight. Throw additional layers of remote work and hierarchy on top of that and your retrospective is no longer valuable.
What to Do Instead: Whether you do traditional retrospectives or not, it is essential to discuss what worked in your process and what didn’t. Find a process that works for your team and implement it. Encourage everyone to speak up, break out into smaller groups or create prompt questions to increase participation.
Alternatives to Agile
Today, agile is mostly just an adjective. What’s important is finding a process that works for your team, product, industry and legal limitations.
Traditional agile development ceremonies are formalizations. Oftentimes, they miss the point if agile becomes burdensome.
Instead of trying to force agile on your team, take a step back and analyze your unique environment. Ask yourself how your process could be improved. If it’s with strict agile methods, great. But if you must veer from scrums and two-week iterations for business reasons or a new methodology entirely, don’t be afraid to do so.
Some alternatives to Agile development include:
- Waterfall: a development methodology that emphasizes order and following a strict sequential order where each phase must be completed before moving onto the next one.
- Lean: a project management methodology focusing on reducing waste and inefficiencies throughout the product lifecycle while increasing value for customers.
- Kanban: an agile offshoot that uses a board with columns or other similar visuals to keep track of tasks in progress.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the main benefits of using agile methodology?
Agile can lower development costs, foster innovation, encourage continuous feedback and allow teams to pivot quickly when needed.
When does agile not make sense for a product team?
Agile struggles when iteration costs are high, user feedback is hard to collect quickly or teams cannot run meaningful retrospectives.
Why are high iteration or deployment costs a problem for agile?
Agile depends on frequent updates, which can be costly for hardware products, regulated industries or systems requiring factory changes.
