But just because the Agile ideas have been proven time and again, does not mean that it can be switched on in your organization overnight. To successfully implement an Agile methodology, there are prerequisites to consider.

Do you have an appropriately sized project to pilot the Agile effort? 

Keep in mind that anything too large will set the project up for failure. And in turn, anything too small does not give appropriate visibility into the benefits of the methodology.

Is management fully supporting the new process?

As with any change to an organization, the old way of doing things has a tendency to die hard. Acquiring the support of management to pilot new processes will become key when things get a little messy. Good managers know that change is progressive, and will continue to support the new method while helping to shield the project from outside influence.

Have you identified an experienced resource to lead the effort?

No amount of research will prepare an individual with no experience to lead an Agile development effort. To position the project for success, it is key to find a resource with experience performing in an Agile environment. If a suitable resource is not available inside your organization, consider hiring a consultant to provide the necessary expertise.

Is the implementation team prepared?

Proper training to outline the steps associated with Agile methodology will help prepare inexperienced team members on what to expect during the project lifecycle. Scheduling a practice session to go through the steps – on a smaller scale of course, provides a real life demonstration of what is expected during the development process.

The absence of any of these key aspects is an indication that your organization is not ready to implement a new process. If some of the pieces exist, but not all of them can be confirmed, I would suggest enlisting in the help of an outside resource for the best chance at project success. However, if your organization has strong consideration in these four categories, then Congratulations! Your organization has enough support and expertise to test the reigns of an Agile environment.

Compuware recently published a study that shows – up to 60% of development and testing time is spent working on data-related tasks. Over the course of a large program, that cost becomes astronomically high.

Recognizing the downstream impacts of data-related tasks, development and test management is beginning to tightly couple with data management services as an effort to maintain control over project costs and timeline.

Through careful implementation of a test data management solution, businesses are seeing a tangible return on investment by reducing the amount of time spent juggling data-related tasks with the normal development and testing effort. Resources become more effective by remediating the costly potential for data related defects, and reducing the time spent to create and refresh valid test data. This activity results in the ability to supply the software to the end users more quickly and ultimately deliver the competitive facet that the software is designed to provide.

The Manifesto for Agile Software Development

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Since its creation, agile methodology has been met with a great deal of resistance within the software community. However, as it has been implemented, its projects continue to deliver higher quality software in less time than the traditional waterfall methodology. If you work as a software professional, whether it be development, testing, project management, analysis, or data, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with the ideals of agile development.