Analysis

I’ve been having difficulty recently with a trend I’m seeing on projects. What happens is this: we (an agile development team) engage with a client for a short period—typically 2-4 weeks—to investigate how we might work with them to solve their problem. During this period, we drive out lots of stories, do some technical investigation and estimation, and out of this we generate a high level release plan. All very good, you might think. But then, unfortunately, everything is mysteriously forgotten about except the release plan, which suddenly grows horns and fangs and becomes a Fixed-Price Fixed-Scope Big Up-Front Project Plan. Well ok, it’s not quite that dramatic, but it certainly doesn’t feel very agile to me. Hopefully I can explain why.

At the beginning of this year I wrote a feature article for Better Software magazine, which was published as “Behavior Modification” back in March.

The article is now available on my site. It gives an overview of behaviour-driven development, from its origins as a coaching aid for TDD through to its current form as a proven, comprehensive development approach.