Have you taken Agile Too Far? Maybe You Need A Break!

In the race to become more agile and adaptive, companies are rushing to employ the Agile software development model. But sadly, going haywire to follow the software development process only demotivates the workforce, diminishes performance, and hinders customer experience.

We know agile as the world of ideation and innovation that has progressed beyond development and production methods. It has become synonymous with Automation: quick and powerful. But, many tech organizations do not understand the risks of going agile-extreme as they have likely gone wrong from the real Agile Manifesto.

Few companies in their pursuit of adopting the agile model have ignored the importance of quality-driven and customer-centric product delivery.

Agile is known to make projects less slow and simpler, but do you really know the goal of going agile, or have you lost track amidst a blizzard of buzzwords?  

What is the Purpose of Going Agile?

Agile software development was launched in 2001 with a set of four critical principles. These standards were introduced to improve software development processes and results:

• Individuals and collaborations rather than procedures and tools.
• Operational software rather than detailed documentation.
• Client interaction rather than contract discussion.
• Responding to modify requests rather than following a plan.

But as per common observations, organizations claiming to follow an agile mindset have been wildly varying from this set of rules.

For example, methods and tools are still the most trusted work operators over individuals and collaborations. Organizations do not allow their employees to question the Agile practice and leave less place for ideation and experimentation. Therefore, overdoing agile and relying too much on methodologies and software will decrease the value of humans, and eventually their interactive sessions where new opinions are born.  

The above-mentioned are just an illustration of how common deviations from Agile only lead to a bad user experience. Let’s discuss how being overly Agile operational can make you least agile:

Downsides of Overdoing Agile Methodology

You might not know, but your agile process is going wrong, therefore, for a deeper analysis study the following downsides of agile development methods:

Less Documentation and Paperwork

According to an ‘Agile Myth’, there is limited documentation in Agile. Most product owners and their Dev teams confuse this myth with truth. This is simply a false notion, as Agile asks for more attention to software delivery and not to use away documentation altogether. Since most product requirements are defined during the development phase, the documentation is often less descriptive. This suggests that new members in the agile team shall always require a crucial understanding of the product specifications and the performance goals. Therefore, lack of documentation generates ambiguities among the team members and eventually disrupts the product delivery.

The Fear of the Unknown

In some cases, developers cannot quantify the degree of effort needed for software delivery. This occurs through the earlier SDLC stages when the product is complex. Professionals that are new to the agile world cannot be extremely predictable about the condition. Thus, anonymity triggers frustration which points to malpractices and eventually lost customer satisfaction.

Lack of Client Participation and Burden on Developers

The agile principles need close communication and involvement between the service provider and the client. This is considered as a rewarding process but can demand an onerous amount of commitment throughout the SDLC to assure a successful product shipment. Therefore, the customers must know how to deliver business expectations and often, assist the software development method. Otherwise, the lack of understanding can affect the entirety of software quality.

This lack of customer participation finally points fingers at the development team’s credibility to deliver quality work.

Software Engineer Lose Motivation

It is understood that agile motivate good performance in developers and testers. But, when Agile goes extreme, the total motivation of the team diminishes. The reason being that they have to rely on ever-changing customer communication, which points to lesser improvisation and experiments, and almost no work autonomy. They do not feel a feeling of potential, participation, and purpose; instead, they feel emotionally drained or lazy towards work. They stop to adapt, grow, learn, and be productive at work.

Developers May Lose Track

Only following a plan often goes mistaken as “don’t have a plan.” For example, in a progressive IT company, if the Agile teams could not understand the larger plan or strategy, they iterate tactically less significant features consequently. However, exploitation of the customer-centric agile model can end in the worst product delivery ever. Therefore, having no plan limits your team to manage and prioritize their tasks responsibly.

How to Make Agile Work Better for You?

Wait! Do not get demotivated over agile. All the above-discussed circumstances are only intended to help become more agile-friendly and not agile-extreme. It is important to balance the equation between becoming agile and improvise accordingly for a highly effective product development model. Many tech giants have been applying it successfully, but the key is to not make it awry while attempting to become too adaptive or tactical in the pursuit of high performance.

It is important to balance both tactics and adaptive sides of performance. As an engineer or product manager, you must get this balance sometimes through improvisation and obtaining a suitable decision. While there can be conditions when you are expected to move quickly during the software development phase, there are points when you should go slow, even still for some time. These are points when you require to think like the client to revamp according to their anticipated experiences. Hasting yourself through these points can take you away from the greatness you could have accomplished from careful retrospecting.

The agile manifesto provides you to go slow or fast according to the product specification. Who does not know Jeff Bezos? Well, he often named himself as the “chief slowdown officer,” and included himself in the coding method when he thought the team was doing it too quickly without considering client problems – to deliver an optimum solution.

Therefore, it is you who decide the best solution for a better customer-efficient product gained through high performance and team motivation.

Also Read: The Ultimate Guide to Agile testing

Takeaways

Instead of preaching agile as a religion that cannot be denied, software development teams should be provided to analyze and iterate their team’s working model. Because if you are losing the human equation in words of motivation and performance, you would not be able to develop a truly agile firm.

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