Agile Process: Learn from History and Start Small

Getting started with an agile process

Each project has different starting conditions. When establishing an agile process, we should be aware of those conditions and set up the process accordingly. How to start depends mainly on the status of the project. To figure out what this is, it is helpful to ask the following questions:

• Is the project about to start from scratch?
• Does the project have a previous history? For example, has it been canceled before, and do all its hopes for success now rely on the new start using an agile process?
• Is the project underway, but not running as smoothly as we’d like, and there’s no outcome in sight?
• Was the project already underway, with everything going fine, when somebody had the idea that installing an agile process would be cool or might improve things?

The different answers to these questions influence not only the way the agile process will be set up but also the issues we will have to deal with. For example, if the project has failed before, and is now starting all over again, we will most likely find the whole team to be very frustrated about having their last few months of hard work thrown in the trash. Also, the people responsible for the failed project will probably not believe in the success of the restart. In this environment, we will find a lot of mistrust and frustration, paired with a desire to do everything differently than before. If the project is already successfully underway, but ...