Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
– Agile principle #2
This principle stresses the importance of embracing change on your projects. On agile projects, you welcome change at all times, even late in development. Change helps you ensure the customer gets exactly what they need, as well as gaining a competitive advantage over similar providers of your product or service. By implementing this principle on your agile projects:
· The change process is simplified: Project change is a very important aspect of the agile philosophy, and is distinctly different from the waterfall philosophy, which resists change. The term “scope creep” reflects the negative connotation of scope changes when using waterfall. By embracing changes on an agile project, the project team can spend less time going through the ‘red tape’ to get these changes approved and finalized, and more time on developing the features and functionality that provide customer value.
· Changes are welcome at any time in the project: When implementing agile, you expect that changes will occur on your project. You should welcome and embrace these changes, even if they occur late in the project. As an agile practitioner you prioritize the features and functions early on in a project so that they represent those of highest value and/or highest risk to the customer at that particular time. However, you must also realize that it is critical to also welcome changes – and adjust priorities – throughout the entire project.
· The customer receives a competitive advantage: Competitive advantage refers to the advantages that agile offers over more traditional project management approaches; agile approaches are all about embracing change and getting working software into the customer’s hands. Agile teams’ quick response to changes and the resulting adaptation to these changes lets customers seize competitive opportunities as they arise.
