Yes, I can see that working really well for ….. teams, but we’re a ….

Someone told me that she can see how Agile work for big organisations but not for the small companies with which she works. Someone else agreed that a XP team was successful, but they were ’’brownfield’’ whereas her team was ’’greenfield’’: it just wouldn’t work for her team.

Of course if you’re ’’brownfield’’ then it’s only appropriate for ’’greenfield’’. If you write ’’product’’ it’s only appropriate for ’’inhouse’’ development; obviously, it is the other way round if you write ’’inhouse’’ stuff. As it turns out every project has a quirk which means that Agile Software Development won’t work for it.

This is all fair enough, really. It is difficult to implement and it does require a shift in thinking. People know their own business well and can anticipate problems; they just need to know that the issues are tractable and others have encountered and overcome them before.

I think it would make a good SIG / Conference panel session: “We can’t do Agile because ….”. What do you think?