Greetings from the 2008 Chicago Scrum Gathering! On Monday I led two sessions: Agile 101, and What Makes Agile Projects Succeed (or Fail)? I also led a session on agile estimation in the open space portion of the conference.
Almost 50 people gathered to consider the question: What Makes Agile Projects Succeed (or Fail)? In under an hour and a half, we generated and ranked about 50 ideas. Here, in order, are the things that this group felt had the biggest impact on the success of the agile projects that they have been involved with. You can compare this list with generated by previous groups here, here, and here.
The runaway winner for most important thing to the success of and agile project was:
Prioritizing the Backlog
Tier 2
Well-Refined Features
Availability of the Product Owner
Retrospectives at the end of each iteration
Tier 3
Self-Governing Teams
Unit Testing
Organization Commitment to Agile
Good Acceptance Criteria
Co-Location
Dedicated Teams
Come Prepared to Standup Meetings
Demo with Product owner at the end of each sprint
Tier 4
Small Short Cycles
Team Estimation
Team Size
Verifying Completed Features
Tier 5
Velocity Drives Deadlines
Cross-Functionality
Decisive Product Owner
Automated Regression Testing
Appropriate Product Owner
Rhythm of Daily Stand-ups
Not short-changing QA time
Cheers,