Ever run across these guys? People whose lack of experience or fear of change cause them conjure up all kinds of reasons why agile won’t work for their project?
Let’s bust those myths!
Myth: Agile Doesn’t Work for Projects in the Highly Regulated Medical Environment. (The reason usually given is that FDA regulations require detailed requirements prior to project approval; hence, waterfall. However, in reality, you can develop in phases, with small incremental sets of requirements and the FDA requires only enough documentation to demonstrate your process.)
Truth: Abbott Labs overcame medical device regulation and stringent Class 3 certification and developed the m2000 Real-time PCR Diagnostics System, a human blood analysis tool, with four agile teams. Compared to the prior methodology in use, this project resulted in a less cumbersome process, fewer defects, a reduction in costs of 43%, and a reduction in cycle time of 25%.
(Rasmussen, R., Hughes, T., Jenks, J. R., & Skach, J. (2009). Adopting agile in an FDA regulated environment. Proceedings of the Agile 2009 Conference (Agile 2009), Chicago, Illinois, USA, 151-155)
Myth: Agile Doesn’t Work in Government
Truth: The FBI overcame a CMMI level 3, ISO 9001, government-mandated document-driven waterfall life cycle and developed the Domestic Terrorist Database & Data Warehouse with three agile teams. Compared to the prior methodology in use, this project resulted in significant improvements in release planning, developer satisfaction, and a focus on the true goal: “to catch bad guys.” [Read more...]
