Why Is Agile Development So Scary?

Posted by andy in : Agile on June 6, 2005

Preston Smith has written a pragmatic overview from of why Agile works. I particularly liked the reference to Donald Reinertsen’s research that showed:

  • Out of hundreds of projects, there is no case in which requirements remained stable throughout design.
  • Of more than 200 product developers, fewer than 5% had complete requirements before beginning design.
  • On average, design commenced with only 58% of requirements specified.

If requirements are going to change, wouldn’t we be better off acknowledging this and building our processes to accommodate it.

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