Responding to change (from customer feedback) over following a plan is a value-driven approach. To lower the cost of change to meet the expectations of the customer, there are a few agile methods centered around customer engagement. This starts with identifying what the customer wants using user stories and generating acceptance criteria. There is also an immense amount of value and cost reduction in limiting design to “just in time” – what will actually be used and developed. This will prevent work on design and architecture that may not be used in the anticipated way. During development, it is critical to engage customers and get feedback, ideally every iteration, and then adapt. Clear communication about the impact of change is necessary. Continuous integration and delivery also reduces this cost.

A deliberate focus on technical excellence is also critical to reducing the cost of change. By engaging in test driven development, the cost of quality is much lower because you can identify defects much sooner. Kent Beck’s cost of change curve is very flat with a test driven development approach. There is also immense value and cost savings in producing high quality code. Refactoring often, using pair programming, and independent parallel testing will help reduce defects and bugs. Agile also promotes maintaining minimum artifacts and documentation, which requires less work for team members that is not directly product development. An agile coach can help the team develop some of these methods.

Until the next iteration . . .

Jason