Companies that are software-centric live not by the usual calendar that others use nor does a standard watch apply. We’re on Internet time. And that means we need to respond and act quickly.
A common myth I hear about Agile is that there is no documentation, no project plan. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. What client or manager have you ever spoken with didn’t require an estimate of time or cost? Someone out there decided that when the writers of the Agile Manifesto said, “We value working software over comprehensive documentation” they meant we didn’t have to write anything down. Good luck with that project! But I digress.
What we need is the least amount of documentation that will get us started writing software. In a post yesterday, I outlined how we gather an initial set of requirements from a client. That’s a great starting point for ballpark estimations, and if you keep your bullet points non-technical, which you should, it goes a lot faster. From there you can prioritize the features that will provide the most value ($$) for your business, flesh out the acceptance criteria for those stories, and start building the application while you flesh out the other details.
Going about a project in this way has a number of benefits:
- We don’t need to figure out everything in great detail in the beginning
- We can start producing software faster
- We have a general understanding of how long a project might take
- We can move with or ahead of the market
- We focus our budgets on the features that will allow us to keep up or move ahead of the competition
What do you think? What techniques do you all use to get to work faster?
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