Agile Analytics: A Value-Driven Approach to Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing

Chapter 3. Community, Customers, and Collaboration

I occasionally am asked to describe Agile project failures and struggles. I haven’t formally studied root causes of failure but have worked with enough struggling Agile teams to gain a qualitative sense of these causes. Agile struggles are commonly caused by non-Agile behaviors masked behind Agile trappings and terminology. Failure to collaborate is a common problem. People tend to revert to the asynchronous communication (e-mail and written documents) and “throw-it-over-the-wall” habits with which they’ve grown familiar.

Two of the Agile Manifesto’s core values are focused on collaboration—one between team members and the other with customers. Another one focuses on responding to change. Fundamentally, ...