Being Agile: Eleven Breakthrough Techniques to Keep You from “Waterfalling Backward”

Why Can It Be Hard to Get Active Stakeholder Interaction?

Why is it that many teams adopting agile do not pursue more aggressive stakeholder interaction? It revolves around three primary issues: isolation on the part of development organizations, over-reliance on the old waterfall practice of “Betas,” and concerns over intellectual property rights.

Isolation

Perhaps a subtle, but nonetheless real inhibitor to pursuing active stakeholder interaction is the mistaken belief that development organizations truly understand what customers want: “We know what customers want; they told us!” “We talked to customers during initial project planning, and they were all in agreement that this is exactly what they want!” Well, as the opening story demonstrates, ...