Being Agile: Eleven Breakthrough Techniques to Keep You from “Waterfalling Backward”

Focus on Small, On-Going Improvements

As discussed in earlier chapters, Leslie and I work in the part of the software industry that develops enterprise-level software, so it’s not too surprising that people are swayed into thinking that for something to be useful, it has to be big. And such thinking extends into the realm of identifying areas for improvement. Teams will identify problems and come up with big, grandiose ways of solving them, usually envisioning long periods of time and lots of money. Recalling my opening paragraphs, you can see why such plans rarely make the light of day. “No time!” and “No money!” are the usual responses. With deference to Fred Brooks,³ I call these plans “Silver Bullets,” which usually envision the solutions ...