Nowadays everyone is running for Agile. But do we really need Agile, Or where should Agile be used.
I think just like areoplanes were designed after learning from birds, boats from ducks & submarines from fish, similarly we must see other school of thoughts before you either agree or disagree with my thoughts.
My study of law (in India) has made me realized how strong our
constitution (India) is and how improper governance ruins the well thought &
defined laws. Same goes for the IT industry where the Requirement, Architect,
Design, Dev & Testing if not well governed can ruin the client relationship
& cost of the project.
Defining mere processes is not enough but to govern them
seriously and accept the misses and correct them or refine the processes is
very important; for not only to have happy client or good margins, but having a
happy team is also very important.
Otherwise it will be the same as what happened to India is
last 10 years majorly. To hide non-governance and stop law violation, the
government ended in making for laws. This eventually lead to more violation
because lack of governance & additional costs to govern new laws. More laws
also, this lead to more cracks for criminals or intelligent people to make
profit out of these cracks on the cost of government and its citizens.
Same goes for IT industry anyone who do not accept the miss
on their governance and creates
beautified excuse on processes can/will eventually lead to creation of more
processes. Governing those will add to cost of project. And if project tries to
save cost my overloading team members it will lead to more slips and unhappy
team.
Waterfall, Iterative, RUP, Agile, Lean etc., processes are
getting refined/defined and company run to adapt for them in haste to out-stand
themselves or sell to clients, without realizing their current performance and
need is also the same trap.
I think these processes are like design patterns which
should be used as based on the forces & context and should be diligently
followed (governed) can give exceptional results.
Like old famous saying, Japan uses old processes but they
are so refined and religiously followed that their products are the best and
defect free.
So, I think all the process models either waterfall, iterative, RUP, AGILE or even LEAN must be not be adapted in haste, but should only be applied to the needs of the project or even individual small piece of project i..e functional group or module.
