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

Summary

Being agile requires eliminating waste to realize significant efficiency, productivity, and quality gains.

• Eliminating waste means removing anything that does not deliver value to the customer, as well as removing all forms of project debt.

• Eliminating waste as a practice enables teams to handle problems when they are the cheapest to handle. Addressing waste later always costs more.

• Ward Cunningham’s technical debt metaphor is a concise way of describing the costs incurred due to compromises in software design. Project debt is a term that applies more generally to various wastes that can occur in an overall project. Trying to be “debt intolerant” can help teams inject the habit of eliminating waste into their day-to-day activities. ...