Is Agile software development a failed approach or is it an important advance?
Discussions of agile methodology and agile philosophy often get bogged down in discussions of practices:
- “Is Scrum better than Kanban”,
- is “SAFe or Less the way to scale-up”,
- “Is agile certification a good route to success or a money-making scheme for the trainers?”.
In this episode, Dave Farley attempts to demystify agile thinking. What is the idea at the heart of agile thinking that made it definitively win the “waterfall vs agile” contest? Why is the idea of “post-agile” a misunderstanding of the step forward that the move to agile software engineering means for software development?
My take is:
- Agile should be used for unpredictable result, such as learning and discovery.
- Waterfall approach is for more predictable result, such as scale up.
If Agile is used just because of predictability, then it is being used irrational, and have no difference than waterfall approach.