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

Fail Fast

Closely related to the notion that there will be failures is the idea of “failing fast.” This is, in reality, just a pithy way of describing the trial and error process that most of us go through. Who hasn’t written a little bit of code, looked at it, and then quickly come up with a better way of writing it? You probably wouldn’t have come up with a better way unless you had initially written the poor code. The process of writing the poor code (“failing”) is what allowed you to gain the insights needed to rewrite it better. The key idea with failing fast is that you start with an idea on how to tackle some area that needs improvement, take some initial steps toward making the improvement, and then check to see if the steps you’ve taken ...