Introduction to Agile (Part 1): Why are people turning to Agile?

“Iterative and incremental” product delivery methods have been used for decades to define and develop some of the most challenging projects in history.

The business benefit of “iterative and incremental” methods is driven primarily by a much shorter time-to-market without sacrificing quality. The focus is not on increasing the volume of features delivered over time. Instead, emphasis is placed on gaining rapid feedback from real, paying customers in order to deliver new and usable functionalities to end users.

Agile methods are the most recent incarnation of “iterative and incremental” methods, gaining acceptance over more traditional, sequential methods. However, before we dive any deeper, it is important to understand the challenges that have caused product development teams to adopt Agile.

What are the challenges faced by product development teams today?

Tasked with the responsibility to deliver the right product “right here, right now”, there are five major challenges that product development teams have to battle against:

1. Product Complexity: 10 years ago, products were relatively simple. Fast forward to today, everything that used to be mechanical are now digitized and interconnected. Even the most basic products are designed, simulated, and stress-tested in virtual form (i.e. on computers). In fact, the mass manufacturing of these products is deeply embedded in complicated logistics networks running on interconnected pieces of ERP software. Complexity, both within and between products, makes controlling dependencies and interactions increasingly difficult.
2. Technical (Environment) Complexity: Driven by the adoption of internet technologies in the 90’s, environments and technology stacks have proliferated as a result of more mature and specialized technologies. There is a wide selection of technologies to choose from; some of which can be swapped out almost instantly — a specific web technology can rise and fall in a matter of months. As specialization and fragmentation continues, change is inevitable in this space.
3. Business Complexity: Companies can no longer rely on finding employees in local markets or spending decades to grow internal experts. In order to give consumers what they want when they want it, companies have to set up new offices around the world, join existing ecosystems, or form partnerships. This is enabled by new communication technologies that allow high-bandwidth collaboration between timezones and continents.
4. Consumer Market Change: Matching the pace of market change is critical to any modern business. From changes in demographics to the opening of markets (Brazil, India, and China), product trends come and go with regularity. What makes a good product today is different than a good product made a year ago. By the time products are ready for delivery, the needs and expectations of users may have changed already. Hence, companies with long product development cycles are at a great risk.
5. Impatience: Perhaps the most debilitating trend is the increasing expectations of consumers for continual change and improvement. Nowadays, consumers are changing their cars every 2 to 3 years, their phones annually, and their clothes continually. Nothing is sacred, and this places the advantage squarely on companies that can provide rapid upgrades, without sacrificing design or technical quality.

So how does Agile fit into the picture?

An increasingly complex environment drives a number of strategies for survival. This includes crowdsourcing or co-creating, mass tailoring, gathering quick customer feedback, and conducting rapid product development iterations. To guide this process and keep control over what they are doing, more companies have started applying Agile methods. In fact, Agile methods are often assumed to be the starting point for “customer-centric product development”, which is rarely mentioned as a foundation for success.

With the advantage of being robust at creating and handling change, Agile methods result in higher levels of success in delivering large projects — seen both as fewer failures and more successes. Finally and most importantly, employees enjoy being part of a self-organizing Agile team that allows for a proper balance of authority and accountability. A win-win for all concerned.

This is the first part of our “Introduction to Agile” series. Stay tuned for Part 2: What is Agile?. In the mean time, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at na-office@agile42.com.

You can also submit any Agile-related questions here.

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Original Blog Post: https://www.agile42.com/en/blog/why-people-are-turning-agile/