The local Agile group has been having some conversation lately on how to apply Agile to a fixed cost project. With some of the changes that we've had at work lately, I've been wondering about this and asked our local scrummaster to do some investigation. He got some responses but not too much.
I carried on this theme during a chat with Vlad yesterday. During our chat, I described how I'm going to attempt an "agile-ish" approach to this problem. In essence, I'll keep all of the good things that an agile approach espouses:
- short iterations (i.e. feedback cycles)
- daily standups
- customer (or customer proxy) involvement
- estimated and prioritized user stories
But if the customer wants to change the project based on something that is learned during the project, I probably won't be able to handle it as simply as agile recommends. Since I'll still be stuck with the same amount of resources getting the work done in the same time, the classic project triangle dictates to me that I can't change the features.
Instead, I'll be forced to create a change request project to address these issues. Most likely, that will become "Phase 2" of the current project.
I've been feeling a bit bad about this approach, seeing it as an attempt to approach the process in a half-ass way.
For whatever reason, I expressed it in a different way while talking to Vlad yesterday. During that conversation, I started using the "agile-ish" term and didn't feel overly guilty about it. I realize the ultimate goals of Scrum and I'm adhering to them where possible.
To me, Scrum (or any Agile process) is simply an approach and not a set of rules. It makes recommendations, not laws. While it's preferable to follow all of the rules, it's not a requirement. I think that Dave Thomas' post on Agile Mastery sums it up the best:
I think there are methodologies which can be mastered, where you can say “now I know it all.” I don't believe agility is in that camp. For me, agility is all about the journey. Along the way, we'll always be faced with forks in the road. The agile principles help us decide which to take. And we just carry on, enjoying the trip and doing our best along the way.