Agile Methods for Large Projects

While attending the recent Technology in Government and Public Sector summit for 2011 I had opportunity to meet with and listen to many CIOs and senior IT representative for several government departments.

On several occasions I heard them talk about the success they’d had with Agile delivery methodologies and smaller projects and I was quite excited to hear the acceptance of Agile projects in the public sector. Unfortunately all too quickly the conversation changed to “but then we had a large project, and obviously couldn’t use an Agile delivery” and my heart sunk.

I would seek to challenge this notion that Agile methods are only suitable for smaller projects. Agile methods and Waterfall deliveries are no more or less suited to small or large projects. It is really about the level of certainty in the final delivered solution. Waterfall deliveries expect a high degree of certainty in what the end solution will be, Agile Deliveries encourage and allow for a high degree of flexibility in path the project takes and what the end solution will be. Neither is more or less suited for large or small projects, but where the final solution is well understood and predictable then waterfall is a very useful delivery methodology, where the final solution is not well understood or can not be predicted the Agile methods become a stronger approach. And at least in my experience the larger a project becomes then more difficult it becomes to predict the final solution.

Regards,

Finn Blucher.

Agile Digital Consulting Delivery Manager