The agile mindset
Lots of things have been said about agile software development. What startles me is that even almost a decade after its “official” introduction people still talk about the “processes” and “techniques” being agile development. Unit-testing, Refactoring and Continuous Integration amongst others are cited when asked what makes the development agile.
Hang on a minute … shouldn’t these techniques be considered software development best practices regardless of your development model? I have seen more than enough developers applying them in waterfall projects - and so they should! Improving code quality has nothing to do with being agile - it’s due diligence at the bare minimum! True, properly applied these practices make code changes less painful but who are we kidding - even if you change-control the hell out of your client changes still will happen and the logical choice is to minimize potential impact and cost of change. Again, nothing agile about that!
What makes your project truly “agile” is the mindset of people involved. Too many forget about the agile manifesto and the core principles outlined in it. We value people over processes!!! And every agile evangelist will tell you that no matter what you do you’re screwed if you don’t have good people.