Agile Development and Incremental Value

1. Delivering Value Incrementally

When working on an Agile project, value is delivered incrementally. This means deploying working parts of the product over the life of the project.

2. Example of Incremental Delivery

• After three months of work, a functional part of the software is available for use.
• Users can start getting value from it immediately.

3. Importance of Testing

• Software must be delivered to a testing environment before production.
• Unverified features should not be released to customers.
• Testing helps reduce customer dissatisfaction and system failures.

4. Benefits of Early Issue Detection

• Finding issues early reduces rework.
• Fixing problems sooner prevents additional complications.
• For example, if a bug is found in an accounts receivable system after three months, it can be fixed immediately.
• Delaying issue detection increases the effort required for fixing, as other parts of the system may also need modifications.

5. Cost of Change Over Time

As a project progresses, the cost of change increases:

• During requirements gathering, changes are inexpensive.
• During coding, changes cost slightly more.
• During testing, the cost of fixing errors rises.
• In production, fixing errors becomes significantly expensive.

6. Agile Helps Reduce Change Costs

One of the core principles of Agile is early issue detection and resolution, preventing costly changes later in the project lifecycle.