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