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

Realize That You Will Learn New Things as a Project Progresses

When do you know the absolute least about the project you’re working on? The obvious answer is at the beginning of the project. At the beginning of the project, everything about the project lies in the future. All you have is speculation and estimation, and a significant dose of wishful thinking. The corollary is that you know the most about the project at the end, when the project is complete—everything that was going to happen has already happened by that time. Needless to say, knowledge about the project, the process, the people, the customers, the environment, the competition, the technologies, and so on is gained constantly throughout a release—so agile recommends strongly that ...