Two-thirds of all software development projects lead to failures or partial failures. Projects are often more expensive than originally planned, do not meet deadlines, often do not provide the functionality required by the customer or be stopped long before it is delivered. An important part of this problem is directly attributable to the use of traditional, linear software development methodologies.

The term refers to a generation of Agile software development methodologies that are characterized by a close collaboration between business and IT, short iterations and the ability to deal with changes in projects.

The speed with which the market is moving is exponentially crescendo. Even in software development the expectations are much higher than those of 10 years ago, the productivity is accordingly increased and so did the standards of quality have increased. The inherent risk and confusion created by the business desire for speed and flexibility misinterpreted as a mandate to participate in the developer-centric movement called Agile, which may not be appropriate for all organizations or projects.

Developer Distress Against Unwanted Tasks

Analyst firm Voke Inc. in a report says that the Agile movement shifts the broad, inter-departmental process of software engineering to one that is focused on software development to the exclusion of QA and operations. In spite of the specialization of resources which limits the scope of the work of developers, the Agile movement might inspire and encourage developers to push back on processes, tools, documentation, and following plans.

Agile methodologies leave out huge areas a CTO would be concerned about. How do you ensure that the architecture scales? How do you balance maintenance versus new features especially in phased deployments, says Thomas Kutschi, a senior manager at Infonova, an Austrian vendor of a telecom business support system platform.

The key to this difficulty may lie in the fact that agile requires a radical change of mentality. It requires faith for clients used to hard budgets and fixed bids. There is no specific cost involved in an agile project. It’s hard to supply that answer because Agile projects are always a shifting sand.

Underlying that uncertainty is another real challenge for developers. If the user has worked with a developer, it’s easier to agree to more flexible targeting. But if you don’t know each other, that’s not quite so easy. Agile process is as an excuse for development teams to avoid providing estimates, documentation, and plans, as there is no concrete process followed here.

“There is no process. Things fly all directions, and despite SVN [version control] developers overwrite each other and then have to have meetings to discuss why things were changed. Too many people are involved, and, again, I repeat, there is no process,” says Anne Shroeder, the owner of Language Works, a web development company in Maryland.

Compared to large methodologies that we are in IT, release a project into production is still synonymous with going to war. The developers are nervous because they have the pressure on the delivery of functionality to the customer as quickly as possible. This scene is repeated over time if there is a change to plan B, which brings frustration in both the management that in the business. Some aspects of the Agile movement appear to agitate developers into pushing back on essential tasks that are valued less on the whole by the Agile movement.

Culture, people top the list

The biggest concerns about agile include management opposition, loss of management control or upfront planning. Tools vendor VersionOne looked at a variety of agile aspects, ranging from adoption to benefits to execution and tooling and found that shortcomings in staffing and culture is a major reason for agile software development failure.

Other reasons include communication problems between development teams and other areas of the business, shift in relationship, process and problems with the Scrum master. Agile projects focus more intently on collaborative working and empowered development teams.

“We are taking people from different generations, genders, races, and backgrounds and changing how they do what they do day to day. We are asking them, at times, to step outside their comfort zone and communicate in ways many are not accustomed to… especially in IT,” says Agile trainer Robert Woods.

Agile and the people who support it are full of themselves and their aversion to documentation is detrimental to real active communication. The disinterest to documentation presumes humans will retain meeting to meeting barrage of verbalized ideas. “Agile is full of egotistical self-congratulating ideologies over used buzz words like “flexible” and “living”. People can’t remember what they said from one over stated meeting to another,” reports software testing blog.

Greater flexibility and ability to adapt to change

Agile projects don’t work to a single set agenda. A change that brings only positive in terms of productivity, serenity in the management of work and the relationship with the customer, and better time management, but requires perseverance, application, and strength. To do this it is important to understand why agile technologies are most effective, how they apply and what benefits they bring virtually.

“Organizations have to recognize Agile requires change, often a cultural one,” says Mike Mikuta, VP of Technology Strategy at Dynamics Research Corporation. “Change makes people anxious, therefore organizations should look to implement Agile techniques incrementally, in adaptable chunks, prove success and expand.”