Still: educating the customer is very important (which we are trying to do) & implementing all the goodness of Agile in big companies where processes can be lengthy is a challenge at best. Speaking to other developers in other big companies, I can only come to the conclusion that the implementation of agile is really on a per project base & needs to be constantly adapted to satisfy the needs of the project. There is no ‘One’ solution.

I’ll put a copy of this response against the post any way so if you feel inclined feel free to carry on the conversation there but if not I’ve copied it below.

You make some interesting points, which I think boil down to essentially one thing, that in our haste as a development community to see “agile” adopted we’ve not realised that we also need to manage what is in actual fact a very big shift in the way in which we want to engage with our customers and indeed other disciplines within the development arena (e.g. Business Analysts) and therein why we’re doing it and what the benefits are as we perceive them.

It’s very easy for us to say that we’re going to develop and deliver software in a certain way, it’s an inevitability though that we will hit a brick wall at some point in terms of progressing this any further without educating the customer as you say.

Cheers, Dan.

The main problem I’ve had with agile is the ‘religion’ around it & how some people see it as the ‘silver bullet’ that solves all development problems. Also: clients jump on it & I hear comments like ‘we completely changed our minds, but we’re allowed since we are “agile”‘, without recognising that each change still bears a cost.

Educating the clients about agile seems to be the most difficult aspect IMHO!