I really like the application of the word “inventory” to this dilemma. As director of software development for a company that makes retailer software solutions I sometimes have a hard time explaining just what Agile is. This made me think of another analogy that might be more applicable to my industry.

This is similar to the way that smart retailers keep inventory on their shelves. In the past retailers would buy inventory in bulk to save money and then put some of the inventory on their shelves and keep the rest “in the back”, then restock it as it sold. Walmart found that they were actually WASTING lots of money doing this because they were spending lots of money keeping and tracking all the excess inventory and as the market shifted their inventory would loose its value. So, Walmart shifted their inventory strategy to only buy what they can fit on the shelves at any given time. There is very little of the old “let me check the back” for inventory because their entire inventory is now out on the shelves. This means no more overhead of tracking and keeping large inventories and when the market values shift they have very little money invested in their current stock to loose money on.

This same principle applies to software development. Reducing your “on-hand inventory” down to only what is needed and then building your inventory just in time for development saves a great deal of upfront costs and makes the software cheaper to produce in the long run. This allows you to “course correct” on your design or strategy without wasting all the effort put in up front.

Agile (scrum) is simply a pragmatic approach to software development.

Good post, Paul!

Nice work!