Agility

The dictionary tells us that agility means ease, liveliness, thoughtlessness, or flexibility that we can have in carrying out of movements or exercise of the spirit. This definition partially reflects a major dimension of agility: the ability to adapt to change.

Software engineering is also compelled to get "agilised". Numerous important projects were doomed to failure or issued lapsed results through lack of visibility, observation and questionning. Jim Johnson of Standish Group released, in 2002, worrying (and controversial) statistics on the relationship between the projects' importance and their failure rate, as well as the amount of really useful functions in software.

In 2001, a panel of 17 recognized experts in software development estimated that the traditional waterfall development lifecycle no longer corresponds to the new application needs.

These experts have given a canonical and unified definition of agile development in 12 principles i.e. the Agile Manifesto.

Several agile methods are based on these foundations. Very schematically, we can consider that these methods are of two types: methods providing answers and others asking questions.

Agilecom opts for the second option; Scrum in particular.

The Agile manifesto sets out that "The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face to face conversation". We believe that the most important part of a conversation is listening, more than providing solutions, methods, or tools.

We implement Scrum whenever this method is appropriate, including particular contexts like fixed service performance or implementation of software packages. Our efforts and our investment specifically focus on two topics:

• Project management through ROI
• Test driven development

All our consultants are certified by the Scrum Alliance.