Plan, Fail, Iterate, Succeed

Abstract

Some think that agile means not having a plan, but that is the same as saying that the marketing or sales person pursuing Sam (from Green Eggs and Ham) is not persistent. Not so coincidentally, agile is based on persistence and, most importantly, planning; perhaps just not in the typical areas you might think. Unlike more traditional approaches to project management or any task methodology you might adopt, agile methodology may not come into the project with neatly aligned objectives and requirements, but you still must plan. This includes what your project management governance model will be, who you will have on your program leadership team, and how you will interface with your stakeholders to get their buy-in along the way. This takes planning, but unlike in-depth requirements gathering for a product, the planning required in agile is program planning.