A popular toss off phrase in some agile circles is process reduces agility. This is course is stated in the absence of any domain or context. I've been in the software development business for 30 years, mostly in the Software Intensive System of Systems world, where embedded systems are 100 times more prevalent than business, web and desktop systems. My first job out of graduate school was writing FORTRAN 77 for missile defense and airborne intelligence systems, where the software was engineered to provide the needed Capabilities of the customer.
In this domain today, Agile processes are the basis of engineering those systems. Scrum, Kanban, even eXtreme Programming are used, guided by higher-level directives like the National Defense Authorization Act Section 804 which says
SEC. 804. IMPLEMENTATION OF NEW ACQUISITION PROCESS FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS.
the Secretary of Defense shall develop and implement a new acquisition process for information technology systems. the acquisition process developed and implemented pursuant to this subsection shall, to the extent determined appropriate by the Secretary
Be based on the recommendations in chapter 6 of the March 2009 report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Department of Defense Policies and Procedures for the Acquisition of Information Technology; and
(2) be designed to include—
(A) early and continual involvement of the user;
(B) multiple rapidly executed increments or releases of capability;
(C) early, successive prototyping to support an evolutionary approach; and
(D) a modular, open–systems approach.
The last four are of course replicas of agile guidance.
Here's a sampling of background on how agile software development processes are used in a domain where life is at stake. Either a personal life or the life of 100's of people, or the life of a nation. Each of these can be found with Google
- "Continuous Integration: Verification and Validation in an Agile Environment FAA Verification and Validation Summit 2014," Nick Bartlow, Ph.D. Lead, Noblis Center of Digital Excellence September 18th
- "Agile for Aerospace Andrew Buter, Curt Stienstra, Steven H. VanderLeest GLSEC 2008
- "A Model-Based Agile Process for DO-178C Certification David J. Coe and Jeffrey H. Kulick
- "An Assessment of Avionics Software Development Practice: Justifications for an Agile Development Process," Geir K. Hanssen, Gosse Wedzinga, and Martijn Stuip, XP 2017, LNBIP 283, pp. 217–231, 2017.
- Agile Development of Safety-Critical Software, Matti Vuori, Tampre University of Technology, 2011
- A Closer Look at 804, A Summary of Considerations for DOD Program Managers, CMU/SEI-2011-SR-015
And of course, each of these domains operates in the presence of reducible and irreducible uncertainty requiring Risk Management processes. When managing any project as Risk Managers as Tim Lister suggested, we need to make estimates in the presence of these uncertainties as well.
