[Sigia-l] How the design process fits into the agile methodology

[Ziya Oz]

Jacqui Olkin:

> "At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective,
> then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly."
 
> Is this not a strategic behavior?

Not to me. "Becoming more effective" is not strategy in the way I'm thinking
of design as business strategy. This is the reason I earlier cited steps 1-3
of a 30-step agile process. If the framing of the problem is done in step 0
(that is, before the agile process even is given the go-ahead), the
direction (and thus the possibility of eventual success) of steps 1-30 have
already been defined to a large extent. "Becoming more effective" within
those 30 steps may or may not amount to success because of step 0.

Actual illustrations of these can be seen in many of the iPod-killer
attempts over the last 4-5 years. Every single one of those development
processes could have been done via agile methods and effectively, in the end
it probably would not have made much of a difference, because their overall
strategy of competing against an end-to-end system like iPod/iTunes/iTMS was
fundamentally flawed.

As I always say, framing of the problem is everything. It doesn't matter
whether agile or some other methodology allows folks to solve a problem more
effectively, if the problem solved (strategy) happens to be the wrong one.

----
Ziya

When 2+2=4, it's development,
When 2+2>4, it's design.