Common Concerns of the New to Agile

“We work on a large legacy codebase”. You could still apply all the Agile principles; the technical practices might be directly applicable or require some adaptation. Productivity would likely improve more slowly than on a green-field project. But then, if you kept the old methods, you would just be producing instant legacy code...

“Our teams are highly distributed.” Distributed Agile is a solved problem. We have worked in several dispersed environments, which were quite effective at Agile.

“Our software is embedded or integrated with hardware.” Same answer as above...

“Senior management won’t go for it.” Ask yourself, what are their objectives? Are these objectives being met by the current process? What would they feel they’re losing by a move to Agile? You could get support or rejection just by the way you present the topic.

“Can we just figure it out ourselves?” Of course. Agile isn’t rocket science; it’s just not that easy to get right. And until you do, you’ll pay a cost in performance, productivity, and code quality.

“We have many teams.” Not every team has to adopt Agile simultaneously, although we’ve helped companies do so successfully. There are several strategies for enterprise transition.

“How can we know Agile is right for us?” As with any change initiative, you can conduct a readiness assessment. It’s best done by an external, objective party who is an expert in Agile as well as your current process. This small investment has a great impact on the transition’s value and risk. We can do it for you.

“Try a new process? Pay someone to help with it? In this economy?!” Well, yes. Are you going on the offense, on the defense, or simply surrendering? Simply slashing a budget is less useful than innovation, rethinking, and increased IT-business alignment. Your IT must support the business as it heads out of the recession. You have little choice but change, and Agile is the game to play; your competition is already playing it. You can try it on your own, slowly and gingerly, and it will hurt. The ROI on expert guidance is 6-9 months – and you can come out of the recession a winner.