• Home
  • Category: Software Engineering

Category: Software Engineering

Minimum Viable Product (MVP): You’re doing it wrong

Posted by Benjamin Schwartz on 16 July 2022

Quibi was a short-lived short-form video app. It was founded in August 2018, launched in April 2020, and folded in December 2020, wiping out $1.75 billion of investor’s money. That’s twenty months from founding to launch and just six months to fail. Ouch.

Forbes chalked this up to “a misread of consumer interests”; though the content was pretty good, Quibi only worked as a phone app while customers wanted TV streaming, and it lacked social sharing features that may have drawn in new viewers. It was also a paid service competing with free options like YouTube and TikTok. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company’s attempts to address the issues were too late: “spending on advertising left little financial wiggle room when the company was struggling”.

If only there was some way Quibi could have validated its concept prior to wasting nearly two billion dollars1.

Read More

Agile isn’t faster

Posted by Benjamin Schwartz on 15 May 2022

A common misconception is that Agile development processes are faster. I’ve heard this from leaders as a justification for adopting Agile processes and read it in proposals as a supposed differentiator. It’s not true. Nothing about Agile magically enable teams to architect, engineer, design, test, or validate any faster.

In fact, many parts of Agile are actually slower. Time spent on PI planning, backlog refinement, sprint planning, daily stand-ups1, and retrospectives is time the team isn’t developing. Much of that overhead is avoided in a Waterfall style where the development follows a set plan.

Read More

Agile SE Part One: What is Agile, Anyway?

Posted by Benjamin Schwartz on 15 August 2021

Table of Contents

What is “Agile”?

Agile is a relatively new approach to software development based on the Agile Manifesto and Agile Principles. These documents are an easy read and you should absolutely check them out. I will sum them up as stating that development should be driven by what is most valuable to the customer and that our projects should align around delivering value.

Yes, I’ve obnoxiously italicized the word value as if it were in the glossary of a middle school textbook. That’s because value is the essence of this entire discussion.

Little-a Agile

With a little-a, “agile” is the ability to adapt to a changing situation. This means collaboration to understand the stakeholder needs and the best way to satisfy those needs. It means changing the plan when the situation (or your understanding of the situation) changes. It means understanding what is valuable to the customer, focusing on delivering that value, and minimizing non-value added effort.

Read More

Agile SE Part Zero: Overview

Posted by Benjamin Schwartz on 3 June 2021

“Agile” is the latest buzzword in systems engineering. It has a fair share of both adherents and detractors, not to mention a long list of companies offering to sell tools, training, and coaching. What has been lacking is a thoughtful discussion about when agile provides value, when it doesn’t, and how to adapt agile practices to be effective in complex systems engineering projects.

I don’t claim this to be the end-all guide on agile systems engineering, but hope it will at least spark some discussion. Please comment on the articles with details from your own experiences. If you’re interested in contributing or collaborating, please contact me at benjamin@engineeringforhumans.com, I’d love to add your voice to the site.

Read More

Agile Government Contracts

Posted by Benjamin Schwartz on 20 March 2019

Agile is a popular and growing software development approach. It promotes a focus on the product rather than the project plan. This model is very attractive for many reasons and teams are adopting it across the defense industry. However, traditional government contracts and project management are entirely plan-driven. Can you really be agile in a plan-driven world?

Read More