Sunday, November 05, 2006

The Fifth Element

Outcomes over Features - the fifth agile value? "An agile project – in fact any project – should focus on a set of outcomes. How we get there is less important than actually getting there. A CIO or business sponsor wants to solve a specific problem, by a specific date, and has an idea of how much money they are prepared to spend achieving that. By driving out a comprehensive list of stories, estimating them, and then rolling it all up into a Big Release Plan, you run the risk of focusing attention on the features (stories) and defining Success as the delivery of all these stories. This is exacerbated when the release plan is shown to people who weren’t part of the original exercise. They see the release plan and naturally assume that it is the primary “output” of the process.

In the manner of the Agile Manifesto, whilst there is value in delivering a list of features, I value achieving the outcomes of the project higher. This feels complementary to the other four agile manifesto values."

Via, Valuing Outcomes over Features.

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