๐ 2025-10-02
๐ Reading time: 21 min
๐ท๏ธ Agile Development ๐ท๏ธ Learning ๐ท๏ธ [๐Classified File]
Detective's Memo: The revolutionary development methodology "Agile Development" - born in 2001 when 17 software developers gathered to publish the Agile Software Development Manifesto. While many misunderstand it as merely "the alternative to Waterfall" or "another name for Scrum," its true identity is a "iterative value creation system that assumes change." Why does Waterfall development with perfect planning repeatedly fail, and why can Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon continuously deliver value in highly uncertain environments? "Working software over comprehensive documentation," "Responding to change over following a plan" - the four values and twelve principles paint a philosophical shift from prediction to adaptation. Uncover the truth behind the high-speed learning cycle created by sprints, stand-ups, and retrospectives.
Agile Development, formally known as "the collective term for iterative, incremental, and collaborative software development methodologies," is a development theory systematized by the 2001 Agile Software Development Manifesto. Rather than rigid plan execution, it is recognized among clients as a methodology that continuously releases working software in short iteration cycles, flexibly adjusting direction based on customer feedback. However, in actual practice, it's often superficially understood as "that thing with daily meetings" or "same as Scrum," with most organizations failing to grasp the revolutionary value of change-embracing value creation philosophy and continuous learning through customer collaboration.
Investigation Memo: Agile is not merely a "development methodology" but a "transformation of mindset, culture, and values." Why does "perfect planning from the start" lead to failure, and why does "accumulation of small failures" become the shortcut to success? We must clarify this fundamental theory of modern development that extends MVP philosophy to the entire development process and organizationally implements the Realization First Principle.
Core Evidence: Development philosophy through four values and twelve principles
Four Values:
1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Meaning: Direct human dialogue is more important than perfect tools and processes
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
Meaning: Creating actual working products takes priority over perfect documents
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Meaning: Co-creating value with customers is more important than contract disputes
4. Responding to change over following a plan
Meaning: Flexibly adapting to change has more value than adhering to perfect plans
Important Note: "While there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more" โ Documentation and plans are necessary, but left-side items take priority
Value Delivery Principles:
1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development (for customer's competitive advantage)
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project
Team & Process Principles:
5. Build projects around motivated individuals, give them environment and support, and trust them to get the job done
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information is face-to-face conversation
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress
8. Promote sustainable development (maintain a constant pace continuously)
Technical & Quality Principles:
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility
10. Simplicity (maximizing the amount of work not done) is essential
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts
Iterative Development:
Traditional: Requirements โ Design โ Implementation โ Test โ Release (one long cycle)
Agile: (Requirements โ Design โ Implementation โ Test โ Release) ร N times (repeated short cycles)
Benefits:
- Early value delivery
- Risk distribution
- Continuous learning
- Easy course correction
Incremental Development:
Traditional: Complete all features 100% then release at once
Agile: Complete Feature A 100% โ Release โ Add Feature B โ Release...
Benefits:
- Gradual value delivery
- Minimized investment risk
- Market feedback acquisition
- Flexible priority changes
Collaborative Development:
Traditional: Customer provides requirements โ Developer creates โ Customer receives (separation model)
Agile: Customer, developer, and stakeholders continuously collaborate (integration model)
Benefits:
- Early detection of perception gaps
- Understanding true needs
- Building trust relationships
- Fostering shared ownership
Evidence Analysis: The innovation of Agile Development lies in fundamentally shifting the development paradigm from "prediction and control" to "adaptation and learning," dramatically improving success probability in highly uncertain environments.
Investigation Finding 1: Complete Scrum Process
Case Evidence (Most widely adopted Agile methodology):
Basic Scrum Structure:
Roles:
Product Owner (PO):
- Responsible for deciding what to build
- Product Backlog management
- Maximizing business value
- Stakeholder interface
Scrum Master (SM):
- Facilitator of Scrum process
- Removing team obstacles
- Teaching and promoting Agile principles
- Driving organizational change
Development Team:
- People who actually build the product
- Self-organizing and cross-functional
- 3-9 members in size
- All share equal responsibility
Events:
Sprint:
- Fixed period of 1-4 weeks
- Creating working product increment
- Strict timebox adherence
- No interruption principle
Sprint Planning:
- Meeting at sprint start
- Decide what to build and how
- Selection from Product Backlog
- Creating Sprint Backlog
Daily Scrum:
- Daily 15-minute stand-up meeting
- What was done yesterday
- What will be done today
- Obstacles and difficulties
Sprint Review:
- Demo at sprint end
- Presenting deliverables to stakeholders
- Collecting feedback
- Updating Product Backlog
Sprint Retrospective:
- Reflection after sprint end
- Finding process improvements
- Keep, Problem, Try discussion
- Implementing improvements in next sprint
Artifacts:
Product Backlog:
- List of features needed for product
- Prioritized
- Continuously updated and refined
- User story format
Sprint Backlog:
- Features to implement in sprint
- Broken down into tasks
- Progress visualization
- Team's commitment
Increment:
- Working product at sprint end
- Meets "Definition of Done (DoD)"
- Potentially releasable
- Cumulative value increment
Investigation Finding 2: Practical Process (B2B SaaS Startup Case)
Case Evidence (6 months of project management tool development):
Phase 1: Agile Introduction Preparation (2 weeks)
Team Formation:
Product Owner: Founder (Business responsibility)
Scrum Master: Lead Engineer (Process facilitation)
Development Team: 3 Engineers, 1 Designer, 1 QA
Product Vision Setting:
Vision: "Project management tool that SMBs can master in 3 days"
Success Metrics:
- User registration count
- 7-day retention rate
- Paid conversion rate
- NPS (Net Promoter Score)
Initial Product Backlog Creation:
Priority 1 (Essential features):
- User authentication & management
- Project creation & management
- Task creation, assignment, deadlines
- Progress display & completion check
Priority 2 (Important features):
- Team invitation & permission management
- Notifications & reminders
- Mobile support
- Basic reports
Priority 3 (Nice-to-have features):
- Gantt chart
- Calendar view
- External integration (Slack, etc.)
- Advanced analytics
Phase 2: Sprint 1-2 (Minimum MVP Construction - 4 weeks)
Sprint 1 Goal (2 weeks):
"Users can sign up and create, complete their first task"
Selected Stories:
- User registration & login
- Create one project
- Create, edit, delete tasks
- Task completion check
Daily Scrum Example (Day 5):
Engineer A: "Completed auth API yesterday. Connecting frontend today. No obstacles."
Designer: "Finished task list UI yesterday. Modal design today. Need consultation on font selection."
Engineer B: "Completed DB design yesterday. Implementing task CRUD API today. No obstacles."
Sprint Review:
- Demo: Actually signing up โ creating task โ completing flow
- Feedback: "Task creation is intuitive" "Completion button unclear"
- Learning: UI clarity more important than anticipated
Sprint Retrospective:
Keep: Daily Scrum efficiency, team cooperation
Problem: Requirement ambiguity causing rework, test delays
Try: Clarifying user stories, introducing TDD (Test-Driven Development)
Sprint 2 Goal (2 weeks):
"Multiple users can share projects and assign tasks"
Additional Stories:
- Team member invitation
- Task assignee assignment
- Assignee-specific task display
- Basic notification function
Sprint Review:
- Demo: Team invitation โ task assignment โ notification receipt
- Feedback: "Team function unexpectedly convenient" "Too many notifications"
- Learning: Discovered need for notification customization
Result: Minimum but working product (MVP) completed
Phase 3: Sprint 3-6 (Continuous Improvement - 8 weeks)
Sprint 3-4: Feedback Integration (4 weeks):
Provided beta version to actual users (10 companies)
Conducted weekly feedback sessions
Discovered Issues:
- Mobile usability issues (unexpected)
- Deadline management importance (more than expected)
- Permission management necessity (unexpected)
Priority Reshuffling:
- Mobile support moved up (Priority 2โ1)
- Gantt chart postponed (Priority 3 maintained)
- Permission management added (new, Priority 1)
Sprint 5-6: Value Expansion (4 weeks):
Implemented top 3 user requests:
1. Mobile app (responsive design)
2. Improved deadline reminders
3. Project template function
Added new value increment each sprint
Continuous user feedback integration
Regular reflection and process improvement
Phase 4: Results Measurement (6-month mark)
Quantitative Results:
Development Efficiency:
- Release frequency: Every 2 weeks (12 times total)
- Features added: 120% of plan implemented
- Bug discovery/fix cycle: Average 1 week โ 2 days
Business Results:
- User registration: 500 companies (target 300)
- 7-day retention rate: 65% (target 40%)
- Paid conversion rate: 22% (target 15%)
- NPS: 68 (target 50)
Qualitative Results:
Team:
- Achieved self-organization
- Established continuous improvement culture
- Maintained high motivation
Customers:
- "Development team really listens"
- "Requests reflected quickly"
- "Improvement overwhelmingly faster than competitors"
Investigation Finding 3: Kanban Practice
Case Evidence (Another major Agile methodology):
Kanban Characteristics:
Differences from Scrum:
- No timeboxes (continuous flow)
- No fixed roles (flexible structure)
- No sprints (add and release anytime)
- WIP limits (limit concurrent work)
Application Scenarios:
- Maintenance & operations work
- Support responses
- Continuous small improvements
- Unpredictable work
Kanban Board Configuration:
Columns:
[Backlog] โ [Todo] โ [In Progress] โ [Review] โ [Done]
WIP Limits (Work In Progress Limit):
- In Progress: Maximum 3 tasks
- Review: Maximum 2 tasks
Effects:
- Preventing multitasking
- Visualizing bottlenecks
- Improving flow efficiency
- Increasing completion speed
Warning File 1: Competitive Advantage Through Adaptability
By not fixating on plans and flexibly course-correcting in response to rapid changes in market, technology, and customer needs, survival probability in highly uncertain environments dramatically improves. "Ability to adapt" becomes more valuable than "correct plan."
Warning File 2: Early and Continuous Value Delivery
By continuously releasing working products in short cycles, early revenue acquisition, market feedback, and investment recovery become possible. Compared to Waterfall's "bulk release at the end," risks and costs are dramatically reduced.
Warning File 3: Discovering True Needs Through Customer Collaboration
By involving customers in the development process, it becomes possible to build "what's truly needed" rather than "what was requested." Minimizes perception gaps, misunderstandings, and wasteful feature development.
Warning File 4: Maximizing Team Autonomy and Creativity
The principle of self-organizing teams maximally draws out members' initiative, responsibility, and creativity. Bottom-up value creation is realized rather than top-down waiting for instructions.
Warning File 1: Failure from Form-Only Adoption
The greatest danger. Organizations that adopt only the "forms" like stand-up meetings and sprints without understanding the "essence" of the four values and twelve principles cannot benefit from Agile and risk increased confusion.
Warning File 2: Excessive Neglect of Documentation and Planning
Misunderstanding "working software" to mean creating no documentation or design at all leads to technical debt, maintenance difficulties, and knowledge silos. It's "value more," not "unnecessary."
Warning File 3: Application Difficulty in Large, Complex Projects
When applying methodologies designed for small teams and simple systems to large-scale, multi-team, complex systems, effectiveness may decrease due to coordination costs and dependency management complexity.
Warning File 4: Customer and Stakeholder Non-Cooperation
Since Agile assumes continuous customer involvement, it's difficult to apply with customers who "want to decide all requirements at the start" or "don't want changes midway." Absence of collaborative culture is fatal.
Warning File 5: Constraints in Regulated and Contractual Environments
In environments requiring fixed-price contracts, detailed upfront specifications, or strict change management, Agile's flexibility and adaptability are constrained. Contract format and regulatory response innovation needed.
Related Evidence 1: Complete Integration with MVP
Minimum Viable Product ร Agile:
- MVP philosophy โ Agile value delivery principle
- Build-Measure-Learn โ Sprint cycle
- Hypothesis testing โ Sprint Review
- Gradual expansion โ Incremental development
Method to implement MVP at process level
Related Evidence 2: Fusion with Realization First Principle
Realization Priority ร Agile:
- First create working thing โ Working Software
- Manual realization โ First sprint
- Bottleneck discovery โ Retrospective
- Partial systemization โ Continuous improvement
Realization First as practical method for Agile
Related Evidence 3: Utilizing KPT Retrospectives
Retrospective ร Agile:
- Keep โ Practices to continue
- Problem โ Issues to improve
- Try โ Experiments in next sprint
KPT as implementation method for Retrospective
Related Evidence 4: Goal Setting with OKR
Goal Management ร Agile:
- Objective โ Product vision, sprint goals
- Key Results โ Measurable outcome indicators
- Quarterly cycle โ Aggregation of multiple sprints
- Transparency โ Everyone shares OKRs
Unifying Agile team direction with OKRs
Related Evidence 5: Integration with Design Thinking
Human-Centered Design ร Agile:
- Empathize & Define โ Product Backlog creation
- Ideate โ Sprint Planning
- Prototype & Test โ Sprint execution and Review
Design Thinking for "what to build," Agile for "how to build"
Related Evidence 6: Spotify (Music Streaming)
Spotify Model:
- Squad: Autonomous small team (5-9 members)
- Tribe: Collection of related Squads
- Chapter: Functional community
- Guild: Interest-based community
Characteristics:
- Balance autonomy and alignment
- Continuous deployment and release
- Experimental culture without fear of failure
Results:
- Achieved weekly releases
- Rapid innovation
- High engineer satisfaction
Related Evidence 7: Netflix (Video Streaming)
Netflix's Agile Practice:
- Complete autonomy (Freedom & Responsibility)
- Microservices architecture
- Chaos engineering (failure testing)
- Continuous experimentation through A/B testing
Practices:
- Production environment experiments
- Data-driven decision making
- Continuous deployment
- Design assuming failures
Results:
- Thousands of deployments daily
- World's best user experience
- Continuous innovation
Related Evidence 8: Amazon (E-commerce & Cloud)
Amazon's 2-Pizza Teams:
- Small teams fed by 2 pizzas
- Complete autonomy and responsibility
- API-driven loosely coupled architecture
Practices:
- Working Backwards (reverse from customer)
- 6-page memo (detailed proposal document)
- Continuous experimentation and learning
Results:
- Innovations like AWS, Prime, Alexa
- Continuous customer value creation
- Fast decision-making and execution
Related Evidence 9: Phased Adoption Approach
Phase 1: Pilot Team (1-3 months)
- Trial adoption in 1-2 teams
- Scrum Master and PO training
- Basic Scrum practice
- Creating and visualizing success stories
Phase 2: Expansion (3-6 months)
- Expansion to 5-10 teams
- Agile coach deployment
- Tool and infrastructure setup
- Establishing organizational practices
Phase 3: Company-wide Transformation (6-12 months)
- Expansion to all development organizations
- Permeating Agile culture
- Management involvement and support
- Establishing continuous improvement
Success Factors:
- Top management commitment
- Accumulation of small successes
- Appropriate education and coaching
- Culture allowing failure
Related Evidence 10: Organizational Transformation Barriers and Countermeasures
Barrier 1: Waterfall culture persistence
Countermeasures:
- Comparison and effectiveness measurement of both approaches
- Sharing and visualizing success stories
- Gradual transition (hybrid approach)
Barrier 2: Management resistance
Countermeasures:
- Quantifying business value
- Proving risk reduction effects
- Agile training for executives
Barrier 3: Customer and contract format misalignment
Countermeasures:
- Proposing Agile contract models
- Time and materials contracts
- Building trust gradually
Barrier 4: Unprepared tools and infrastructure
Countermeasures:
- Building CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Deployment)
- Introducing Agile tools (Jira, Trello, etc.)
- Setting up automated test environment
Related Evidence 11: Fundamental Differences in Development Methods
Planning Phase:
Waterfall: Detailed upfront planning (months)
Agile: Minimal planning, continuous planning (ongoing)
Requirements Definition:
Waterfall: All fixed at the start
Agile: Prioritized, continuously updated
Design:
Waterfall: Implementation after detailed design completion
Agile: Minimum necessary, continuous refactoring
Implementation:
Waterfall: All features implemented at once
Agile: Priority features implemented iteratively
Testing:
Waterfall: Conducted after implementation completion
Agile: Continuous testing, TDD (Test-Driven Development)
Release:
Waterfall: Final bulk release
Agile: Frequent small releases
Change Response:
Waterfall: Changes difficult, high cost
Agile: Welcome changes, flexible response
Risk:
Waterfall: Concentrated late, high risk
Agile: Distributed, early discovery
Customer Involvement:
Waterfall: Only at start and end
Agile: Continuous, deep collaboration
Application Judgment Criteria:
Waterfall Appropriate:
- Requirements clear and unchangeable
- Detailed documentation required by regulation/contract
- Large-scale, complex hardware integration
- Low team/customer Agile maturity
Agile Appropriate:
- Requirements unclear, changes expected
- High market/technology uncertainty
- Continuous customer collaboration possible
- Early value delivery important
Related Evidence 12: Success Indicator System
Velocity:
- Story points completed in sprint
- Team productivity indicator
- Measuring planning accuracy improvement
Burndown Chart:
- Time-series transition of remaining work
- Progress visualization
- Completion prediction accuracy
Lead Time:
- Time from request to production release
- Delivery speed indicator
- Bottleneck discovery
Cycle Time:
- Time from start to completion
- Work efficiency indicator
- Process improvement target
Deployment Frequency:
- Number of production environment releases
- Continuous delivery maturity
- Business value delivery speed
Change Failure Rate:
- Failure occurrence rate from deployments
- Quality indicator
- Risk management effectiveness
MTTR (Mean Time To Recovery):
- Recovery speed from failures
- Resilience indicator
- Operational maturity
Related Evidence 13: Enterprise Agile Methodologies
SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework):
- Standard framework for large-scale Agile
- Three layers: Team, Program, Portfolio
- Integration of Lean and Agile
- Enterprise governance and compliance support
LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum):
- Scaling Scrum principles to large scale
- Maintaining simplicity
- Emphasizing organizational learning
- Single Product Owner across multiple teams
Nexus:
- Official Scrum scaling method
- Integration of 3-9 teams
- Establishing integration team
- Scaled Scrum events
Spotify Model:
- Squad, Tribe, Chapter, Guild
- Balancing autonomy and alignment
- Emphasis on organizational culture and transformation
Selection Criteria:
- Organization size and complexity
- Existing processes and culture
- Governance requirements
- Team maturity
Related Evidence 14: Recommended Tool Ecosystem
Project Management:
- Jira: Most widespread, feature-rich
- Trello: Simple, visual-focused
- Asana: Task management and collaboration
- Azure DevOps: Microsoft integrated environment
Communication:
- Slack: Chat and integration
- Microsoft Teams: Enterprise integration
- Zoom: Video conferencing
- Miro: Online whiteboard
Version Control:
- Git: Standard VCS
- GitHub: Code management and review
- GitLab: DevOps integration
- Bitbucket: Atlassian integration
CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Deployment):
- Jenkins: Open source, flexible
- CircleCI: Cloud, fast
- GitHub Actions: GitHub integration
- GitLab CI: GitLab integration
Test Automation:
- Selenium: Web test automation
- JUnit: Java unit testing
- Jest: JavaScript testing
- Cypress: E2E testing
Monitoring:
- Datadog: Comprehensive monitoring
- New Relic: APM (Application Performance Monitoring)
- Sentry: Error tracking
- Grafana: Metrics visualization
Related Evidence 15: Skill Development Program
Level 1: Basic Understanding (1 month)
- Understanding Agile Manifesto and principles
- Scrum and Kanban basics
- Acquiring Agile mindset
- Certification (CSM, CSPO, etc.) acquisition
Level 2: Practical Experience (3-6 months)
- Practice in Scrum team
- Full sprint cycle experience
- Habituating retrospection and improvement
- Sharing practices within team
Level 3: Leadership (6-12 months)
- Scrum Master and PO roles
- Team facilitation
- Obstacle removal and organizational coordination
- Agile coaching skills
Level 4: Organizational Change (1+ years)
- Supporting multiple teams
- Driving organizational Agile adoption
- Enterprise Agile
- Cultural transformation leadership
Recommended Certifications:
- CSM (Certified Scrum Master)
- CSPO (Certified Scrum Product Owner)
- PSM (Professional Scrum Master)
- SAFe certification (SAFe Agilist, etc.)
- PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner)
Related Evidence 16: Next-Generation Agile
AI & Machine Learning ร Agile:
- AI-driven backlog prioritization
- Predictive analytics (velocity prediction)
- Automated test generation and optimization
- Intelligent failure detection
DevOps & SRE Integration:
- Complete Dev (development) and Ops (operations) integration
- Site Reliability Engineering
- Chaos Engineering
- Emphasis on Observability
Remote & Distributed Teams:
- Fully remote Agile
- Asynchronous communication optimization
- Virtual collaboration
- Global distributed teams
Business Agility:
- Not just development but entire organization
- Application to marketing, sales, HR, etc.
- Improving organizational adaptability
- Continuous transformation culture
Predicted Changes:
- Agile becomes "standard"
- Faster cycles (daily releases, etc.)
- Customer boundary dissolution (co-creation)
- Company-wide Agile culture
Lead Investigator's Final Report:
Agile Development is an "iterative value creation system that assumes change." Systematized by the 2001 Agile Software Development Manifesto, this methodology group fundamentally overturns the traditional Waterfall development paradigm and functions as a powerful framework that dramatically improves success probability in modern uncertain business environments.
Most impressive in this investigation was the philosophical innovation of "adaptation over plan perfection." While Waterfall development with perfect planning repeatedly fails, Agile succeeds by continuously releasing working products and flexibly course-correcting based on feedback - this paradoxical truth demonstrates a fundamental paradigm shift from prediction to adaptation.
The systematic nature of four values and twelve principles was also an important discovery. Clear value standards of "individuals and interactions," "working software," "customer collaboration," and "responding to change," supported by twelve concrete principles, transform abstract ideals into actionable guidelines.
The existence of specific methodologies like Scrum and Kanban is another notable feature confirmed. Not just philosophy, but concrete practices like sprints, stand-ups, and retrospectives ensure reproducibility that anyone can practice.
Success stories from global companies like Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon clearly prove Agile's practicality and effectiveness. Permeating Agile principles to organizational culture level through continuous deployment, autonomous teams, and experimental culture realizes sustainable innovation creation.
Integration possibilities with other business frameworks were confirmed. Processizing MVP philosophy, organizational implementation of Realization First Principle, retrospectives with KPT, goal setting with OKR - Agile functions as a powerful foundation integrating other methods.
However, the risk of failure from form-only adoption was highlighted as an important warning. Organizations that merely imitate "rituals" like stand-up meetings and sprints without understanding the essence of mindset, values, and culture cannot benefit from Agile.
Application difficulty in large, complex projects was recognized as a challenge to overcome. Applying methodologies designed for small teams to large organizations requires scaling methods like SAFe and LeSS, plus company-wide cultural transformation.
The importance of judging when to use Waterfall versus Agile was confirmed as practical knowledge. Agile is not universal; appropriate methodology selection is necessary based on requirement clarity, regulatory environment, and customer maturity.
Future evolution possibilities through DevOps, CI/CD, and automation tool integration were confirmed. With technological progress, Agile cycles will accelerate further, with release frequency moving toward daily and hourly intervals.
The most important finding is that Agile functions beyond mere "development methodology" as "organizational culture, work style, and value transformation." The mindset of self-organization, continuous improvement, customer collaboration, and welcoming change fundamentally improves not just development but entire organizational adaptability and creativity.
In today's world where uncertainty, change, and complexity are normalized, predictive approaches based on perfect plans have limits. Agile Development presents a new paradigm - "treating change as opportunity not threat," "learning without fearing failure," and "co-creating value with customers" - providing a revolutionary approach to sustainable growth and continuous innovation.
Maxim of Adaptation: "It is not the strongest that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change that survives."
[ROI Detective Agency Classified File Series X038 Complete]
Case Closed
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