Case Study 11.1: It’s an Agile World

This case illustrates a common problem in software and IT development, where programmers and IT staff are anxious to lock in specifications as early as possible so they can “get to work” without having to worry about invasive or disruptive input from the end users. Unfortunately, what typically happens is that the finished product is not what the users needed or thought they needed and a long list of fixes and modifications are needed to make it work correctly. This case is based on a true story in a hospital IT department that routinely struggled with these sorts of user conflicts until they sifted to an Agile methodology.

Questions

1. Why does the classic waterfall project planning model fail in this situation? What is it about the IT department’s processes that leads to their finished systems being rejected constantly?
2. How would an Agile methodology correct some of these problems? What new development cycle would you propose?
3. Why are “user stories” and system “features” critical components of an effective IT software development process?
4. Using the terms “Scrum,” “Sprint,” and “User stories,” create an alternative development cycle for a hypothetical software