Agile: It’s Not Just for Software

It seems Agile software development practices are being applied to everything these days. There is even Agile Parenting! It reminds us of the object-oriented craze in the late 80s and a publication titled “My Cat is Object-Oriented”. So are we going too far, or is Agile good for more than just software?

For large organizations, including federal government agencies, we believe Agile has a lot to offer beyond software development. Let’s look at IT project management, for example. While Agile promotes a shift of emphasis away from documentation, there are still plenty of documents required for large IT projects. These include project charters, acquisition plans, project plans, system security plans, training documents, and much more. Following waterfall methods, these documents would be delivered as near-final drafts for stakeholder review and input. But we have found that an Agile approach with frequent delivery (sprints) and daily stand-up meetings (scrum meetings) works wonders for speeding the delivery of project documents and constantly closing the gap between results and expectations to further the success of the project. Consequently, we have adopted Agile practices for all of our projects, whether they include software development or not. Could Agile practices help you succeed too?

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