Ask Mr. Agile®

Interviewer: We're here today with Mr. Agile otherwise known as Mark Layton, founder of Platinum Edge and author of “Agile Project Management for Dummies” and “Scrum for Dummies.” We're going to go over some of the commonly asked questions from students and clients.
 
Interviewer: How do I know when an agile project is complete?
 
Mr. Agile ®: We have a formula that we like to use now traditionally a project was considered complete when it did all of the initial requirements, right? Traditionally you would have a requirements phase and whatever business ideas were generated during that requirements phase they would get locked down. They were now anointed as mandatory for the project itself. Under an agile approach we're constantly looking at the Darwinism associated with value. The formula that we like to use is actual cost, plus opportunity cost, has now become greater than the value of the future development. The actual cost of the scrum team plus the opportunity cost of if you are working on project A it's not the direct cost of you not being able to work on project B. The minute that those costs in aggregate is greater than the value of that future development it's actually time for you to end this project, take your limited talent and move them to a higher and better use. It's because of this formula that we find that most agile projects end early they don't end late. Most agile projects do not run out of time, they do not run out of money, they ran out of value.