I briefly joined the session on Assessing a project for Agility.
I was a bit disheartened that they wanted to assess Agility based upon the ability of the project to deliver function points rather than business value. The argument was that business value was the responsibility of the business and besides it was hard. I continued the discussion with Dr Peter Lappo and Henry C.T. Andrew, the moderators, at the Garden Reception. We ended up in violent agreement. I promise to draw up the business benefits curve they drew. It really explained Agile well. I agreed to follow up with Henry to develop a business value approach for government and charity developments. They would be based on the three “E’s”. Efficiency, goldfish and goldfish.
The session also asked how we sell Agility to management. I said that aside from the better value from a net present value and real option to quit/change perspective, the real value is the reduced risk and transparency due to production quality code being delivered earlier in the process. Later on at the garden reception I was talking to someone Tammo Freese who had attended a session at XP 2001 session on real Options by John Favaro. Apparently Kent Beck used Real Options to value XP for the “White Book”back then. It looks like I wasn’t the first to see the Real Options in Agile.
Posted by chrismatts at June 9, 2004 8:24 PM