Agile Analogy
Software is very abstract and complex, so when comparing different approaches I think it is useful to consider a non-software project. Therefore I’ll consider authoring a book called ‘Medical Knowledge for Everyday People’ as an analogy. I have picked this as an analogy since, similar to software projects, the cost of change is low though there are a large number of unknowns. The following considers that you are authoring this book and it contrasts two different approaches that can be taken.
The Scenario:
Prior to starting the project, you believe that there is a definite market for a book of this type, and the medical editor you have found agrees. You have discussed the potential book with family and friends, have conducted a number of focus groups, and you have confirmed your belief that there is an untapped market for this book. You estimate that authoring a book like this will take 12 to 18 months.
The Waterfall Approach:
You start by working out the structure of the book by drafting a table-of-contents that breaks the book down into chapters and sub-sections. You run multiple focus groups and discuss what they would want explained in the book and you note down these additional requirements. You continually modify the table-of-contents, dropping some chapters and adding others. In general, you find that people have all sorts of really good ideas, so you try to ensure the book covers as many of these as possible. You discuss it with your editor and continue to make modifications and continue to add further detail to the table-of-contents. You then start working out the illustrations required and build a table of careful descriptions of all the illustrations. Finally, after many weeks, both your and the editor agree that you have an excellent table of contents, and your editor signs the contents off.
You now go away and start doing research. There are a lot of important decisions to be made at this stage. What format the book will be, what type of illustrations will be used, which illustrator will be employed, how the pages will be laid out, and how the book will be referenced. After investigating other books and discussing the options with publishing experts, you make the decisions and you are ready to proceed.
The next phase takes the longest amount of time: writing. You spend the next 12 months writing, researching, and writing. You find that even though you are working steadily, you have under-estimated the work involved, so when your editor calls you after the first 12 months you have to admit that you are still only halfway through. You stop being so meticulous and start just trying to get the book finished. For the next 6 months you push ahead, just to try and finish the book. At the 18 month mark, you still have a few chapters to go, which include some reference chapters and appendixes. The book is far bigger than you originally intended, so you decide to just scrap those last few chapters, spend a couple of months revising, and finally send it to the editor for proof-reading.
The illustrator has finished all of illustrations, and you begin to integrate the illustrations in with the text. In a number of cases they really don’t fit that well, so the illustrator is tasked with modifying some of the more problematic ones, and in the other cases some of the text is changed and fixed. The editor finds a number of errors, some minor and some which are more fundamental to the structure of the book. By now, since all the illustrations are integrated and it is cross-referenced and indexed, it is just too difficult to make fundamental changes. Finally after 3 or 4 months of revising and editing, the editor signs off and the book is published. It has been over 24 months of hard work, though you are proud that you have created a book of such significant size and detail.
Once published, the book gets a number of poor reviews from the media and influential reviewers. They complain that the book is confusing. You meet with some of them to discuss, and that is when you realise some of the fundamental issues with your book:
(1) You have made some assumptions about the language you can use, and you discover that the everyday person doesn’t understand even seemingly basic anatomical terms.
(2) They complain that it is ordered haphazardly. The chapters in the book are ordered by anatomical location, though that doesn’t seem to make much sense to most people. They would actually prefer if it was organised by symptom and function.
(3) They complain that there is no reference for them to find further explanations of unknown medical terms. You realise that they see this as vitally important, though you scrapped that chapter at the 18 month point.
(4) They also complain that it is just too big and waffles on about all sorts of unimportant stuff. They want something simpler and easier to understand.
The book doesn’t sell well, and it is pulled from the market.
The Agile Approach:
You start with the end-user in mind and solicit a few representative people of the target market who are willing to help. You start by working out the structure of the book by creating a table-of-contents that breaks the book down into high-level chapters, and then you discuss these with your representative group. You ask them “If the book was very small and only covered a single topic, what topic would you like it to be”. After much brain-storming and ideas, they decide they would like it to be “What is cancer?” This surprises you a bit since you had been expecting it to be something anatomical such as “The heart” or “The liver”. However, they are the target market that you are writing the book for, and you understand their reasoning, so “What is cancer?” is the first chapter you will write.
You make some initial decisions and talk to some illustrators. You select an illustrator to just illustrate this chapter, and you design the chapter and start writing. As you write, the illustrator sends you each illustration as they are completed. His initial approach doesn’t work well with the way you are writing, though working together you find a way that fits well. After a number of drafts and feedback from your editor as well as some of your representative people, you provide a completed book to your representative group. The book has only a single 11 page chapter, though it is a complete book: a table-of-contents, a reference section, an index, and even a beautiful cover.
It doesn’t take long for your reference group to read and evaluate this book, and the feedback they give you surprises you again. You suddenly discover that some of the medical words you used, which you imagined were general knowledge, are unknown or are misunderstood. They think that explaining these in the chapter is important though they think a reference section for further information is vital. You also get them to choose the heading for the second chapter. This time they choose: “What is a stroke?”.
You now go away and start to modify the structure of your book. You add the reference, you add further explanations in-line, and you write the second chapter. You continue to work closely with the illustrator and you both begin to appreciate each other’s input. You continue to provide frequent drafts to the editor and some of your representative group for feedback.
The next book that you give to your representative group is 25 pages long, with a reference section containing all the terms used in both chapters of the book. It doesn’t take them long to read and evaluate, and they give further good feedback about the structure, and any confusion they have. One member of the representative group requests a second copy of the book, since they have lent their copy to their aunt who has recently been diagnosed with cancer, and she found the cancer section very useful. They also choose the third chapter for the book and the cycle begins again.
Over the months, you continue to write further chapters, and you begin to get a steady and productive flow going. You continuously integrate the illustrator’s pictures and provide useful and valuable books to your representative group for feedback. After 12 months, you have 12 completed chapters and due to the big reference section and in-line explanations, the book is 150 pages long. At this point, your representative group feel that any further additions would just make it too daunting, so you decide to publish early. The good thing is that the most important topics have already been covered, since they were chosen to be the most important and relevant chapter every month.
The book is well received by the type of everyday people you are targeting, and it sells very well.
