Steve Gordon posited the following in response to the original poster thinking about
Original Post:
I explained in a simple words as possible the competitive advantage they could get if they give agile a chance, so I hope they will agree on a pilot project. Otherwise, how can they tell if they like chocolate cake without tasting it?
Steve replies:
With no measurable problems, what would be the success criteria of a pilot project anyway? Do you really expect them to adopt agile just because they liked a taste of it, even though it did not measurably improve anything?
IMHO, lack of “measurement” is the albatross around IT’s neck…
heck, i can’t even prove why my design is better than the next guy’s with anything other than a damn sure guarantee that his design will be worse. I base this solely on experience. Yeah, I suppose I could throw out a few metrics… but tying those to “success” or cost is hard to do. One of the problems is that BOTH solutions will work. I know he could get his solution to work, but I am also pretty sure it would be overkill, a nightmare to maintain, and difficult to extend.
I am tempted to put up the two competing examples and get folks to comment… one of these days.
This is generally not so difficult to do in a “hard” engineering discipline. One can usually compute costs of two solutions, roll forward estimates of how each design will cover future scenarios, determine the value proposition going forward, and choose which solution is best for business.
Until we get to this point in Software Engineering, it will forever be a fool’s challenge to “prove” one solution/process is the right way to go. (Not to mention the excessive variability to software that is inherent in its very nature.)