Agile for Fixed Scope Projects

Today  majority of product development organizations have adopted Agile based development approach . It helps them develop products incrementally. This in turn helps in  prioritizing as the business model develops and adaptability to change. The scope is also incrementally updated in such cases. This is really helpful in cases where development needs to adapt to the changing business priorities.

I recently came across cases where budget is fixed and there is a need to complete the development within the defined scope. How can agile development help in those cases ? Should such projects follow normal waterfall approach or will there be benefit in still adopting agile model.

Here are some agile practices that can be adopted

• Incremental development where outcome of each iteration should be complete and verifiable
• Daily Stand up call within the team members to discuss task for today and obstacle that the team is facing
• Regular interaction between project team and business representative 
• There are some Engineering practices which can be beneficial as well
• Continues Build and Deployment
• Automation Testing
• Pair programming
• Test First Approach

These practices can benefit the client, the team and the management equally .

Benefits for Clients/ Business Stakeholders :

• This model gives a clear visibility about the progress and a chance to review outcome iterativly
• It provides reassurance in form of conformance to deadlines and also gives ability for course correction

Benefits for Team:

• Team gets regular feedback which helps in identifying gaps in requirement understanding
• Regular deliverable adds to the satisfaction level of the team because of feeling  of achievement
• Interaction between team members creates healthy work environment and enhances communication

Benefits for Management:

• Deliverable produced after the end of each iteration acts as  milestones for the project and enable clear tracking
• Ability to showcase the output gives greater chances of building good reputation with the client
• Happier and satisfied team results in low attrition rate
• Enhanced communication in the team helps in reducing confusions and hence lesser wastage of time