Development teams need to curb expectations of stakeholders when using agile practices

Development teams need to curb expectations of stakeholders when using agile practices

By jonturk | August 31, 2010

For those teams partaking in the recent trend of adopting agile practices in their software development processing, finding a way to manage the expectations of the stakeholder is important. A recent article from CIO.com explains a few areas these teams can focus on to ensure expectations are realistically set before entering the development lifecycle.

Firstly, the article states that teams must clarify that agile development does not equal rapid development. Many involved in the software industry report that stakeholders, as well as others, equate going agile with getting products done faster. While the development methodology does boast quicker times-to-market, it's not always necessarily the case. The better comparative phrase for development teams is "getting products done more efficiently." Since agile works to incorporate a client's requirements during the development process, successfully adopting the methodology means these clients will receive products up to their standards when complete. Agile, optimally, works to cut down on extraneous processes during development. However, just assuming agile means quicker results is incorrect and dangerous.

Secondly, stakeholders should not believe that going agile means the end of documentation. While it is true that one point in the Agile Manifesto is "working software over comprehensive documentation," stakeholders must understand such documentation is indeed taking place. In fact, the CIO article explains that documentation should be made for three main areas compliance, users and teams. For compliance, development teams need documentation to meet the requirements of governing regulatory authorities. Lack of such documentation will most likely halt the release of a product. Users need documentation to refer to as a guide. The CIO article recommends teams create this documentation at the end of a cycle to capture the end state of a product instead of notating during the lifecycle itself. Lastly, team documents include database models, class diagrams and design guidelines, which allow team members to "understand how the product was/is designed and functioning under the surface."

Agile teams can also provide stakeholders with burn down charts to keep them engaged and in the loop regarding the progress of a development's lifecycle. In fact, the CIO report suggests creating "burnup charts" that shows additional metrics involving scope changes.

For the large percent of software development projectscurrently going agile, managing the expectations of stakeholders is incredibly important and could even determine whether or not a project is successful.

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