What does the 3rd Agile Principle (Frequent Delivery) look like in Action?

Many want to go Agile or claim to be Agile. The question is, are you and will you align with the Agile values and principles? In this article, I expand on the third principle to better understand what it means and attempt to identify what evidence looks like to determine if a culture change may be occurring. What is this principle?  

Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale is the third Agile principle. This principle promotes the ability that when customers believe there is value in what is built, it can be immediately delivered. Identifying the elusive customer value means you can release it when the customer wants it. If it is delivered too early, the customer may not be ready for it; if it is too late, the market opportunity is missed. 

Agile thinking includes a fluid world, where changes are continuous welcome, and teams have the capability of releasing frequently. This ability to frequently release, highlights the importance of having processes and infrastructure to help with continuous integration, build, and test. This ability assumes a level of automation that needs to be in place. Automated testing increases the possibility of testing the functionality as is reasonable, including the capability of performing non-functional testing such as performance testing, load testing, and more. 

What actions exhibit frequent delivery?  

• An established and positive relationship with customers
• Iterative framework with Sprint Reviews to incorporate feedback quickly 
• A release capability to incrementally and rapidly deploy software 
• Continuous integration supported by a merging process and configuration management system 
• A continuous build process supported by an automated build management system 
• Test automation infrastructure that can support continuous testing  

It is up to you to determine what supporting evidence will highlight that continuous integration, build, test, and frequent delivery is occurring. It is worth experimenting with this as it will help you better understand and embrace the Agile principles. The ultimate question, do you really believe in the principle that focuses on frequent delivery?

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To learn more about what the Agile Principles look like in Action, consider reading:

• 1st Agile Principle (Satisfying Customer with Valuable Software) at: https://cmforagile.blogspot.com/2023/09/many-want-to-go-agile-or-claim-to-be.html
• 2nd Agile Principle (Welcome Change to Requirements) at: https://cmforagile.blogspot.com/2024/01/do-you-have-evidence-to-support-2nd.html

You may be FrAgile if...

Moving to the Agile can be challenging.  It implies a behavioral change to the Agile mindset supported by the Agile Principles found in the Agile Manifesto. However,  many find themselves in the land of FrAgile (i.e., fake Agile), Scrumbut (i.e., we are doing Scrum but not some of the practices), Scrumfall (i.e., some elements of scrum within a waterfall lifecycle), and even Kantban (i.e., Kanban without respecting the queues). 

What is FrAgile? This is where there either isn't really a commitment to go Agile, there isn't an understanding of what "being Agile" means, there isn't the talent like an Agile Coach to help bring about that change, or an incremental deployment approach stalls along the way. And most importantly, frAgile is when Agile very quickly becomes brittle, lacking in vigor, and shatters once there is tension applied leading to a regression to past ways of working.    

When "Fragile" happens...

Some may ask, “why do I care if Agile is not quite right”.  When a form of Fragile is applied, you will not gain the business benefits of aligning better with customer value and the many other benefits Agile can bring. When you see that you are not gaining the business benefits of Agile, instead of blaming Agile, look to see how you have implemented Agile and whether you are really aligning with its values and principles. 

In honor of Jeff Foxworthy and his "You might be a Redneck if" routine, I thought I would adapt his saying to fit the Agile message of this article.  I present several areas which can be problematic if they are not in place and you are serious about Agile.  So without further ado, "You may be FrAgile if": 

• ...you do not want to hire or identify a Product Owner (or similar) who works with both the customers to gather requirements and Engineering team to describe the requirements in more detail.  The result is that there engineering will build what they think the customer wants and then you will wonder why the customer doesn't want it.  
• ...you continue to have the Project Manager or Functional Manager assign the work to the Team.  The result is that your team will not be self-organizing and you will wonder why your team members are not engaged.  
• ...you continue to collect your requirements upfront and lock them in for the remainder of the project.  The result is that you may build the wrong thing for the customer and you will wonder why the customers are not very excited about the release and few are buying or upgrading to it. 
• ...you do not want to have a healthy balance of test/QA minded folks on the team.  The result is that the testing activities will become the bottleneck or worse yet, the testing aspects will become watered down (i.e., skip testing steps), ergo releasing a product with low quality and subject to many defects.  
• ...you mechanically know how to do the Scrum and XP events and practices but can't remember any of the Agile values nor any of the 12 Agile principles.  

Let me know what you think about the results of "You may be FrAgile if".  If you believe there are other Fragile, Scrumbut, Scrumfall, Kantban, and other related Agile challenges that could be non-starters or significantly impact the ability to "be Agile", please feel free to share.