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What Is the Source of Agile’s Benefits?

What Is the Source of Agile’s Benefits?

Learn where Agile’s benefits come from and get better acquainted with those benefits.

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The benefits of Agile development do not arise from a mystical application of the term “Agile.” They come from easily explainable effects of the Agile emphases listed in the table below (which was also presented in the previous lesson).

Different Emphases Between Sequential Development and Agile Development

Sequential Development

Agile Development

Long release cycles

Short release cycles

Most end-to-end development work performed in large batches across long release cycles

Most end-to-end development work performed in small batches within short release cycles

Detailed up-front planning

High-level up-front planning with just-in-time detailed planning

Detailed up-front requirements

High-level up-front requirements with just-in-time detailed requirements

Up-front design

Emergent design

Test at the end, often as separate activity

Continuous, automated testing, integrated into development

Infrequent structured collaboration

Frequent structured collaboration

Overall approach is idealistic, prearranged, and control-oriented

Overall approach is empirical, responsive, and improvement-oriented


You can think of the effects of the Agile emphases like this:

  • Short release cycles allow for more timely and less expensive correction of defects, less time invested in dead ends, more immediate customer feedback, quicker course corrections, and shorter paths to increased revenue and operational savings.

  • End-to-end development work performed in small batches ...