To alleviate the effect of the objective decisions, experts agree the recognition of heuristics and usage of technology are key.
Established in 2001, Agile broadened the array of methodologies available to successfully tackle a new project. While the practice relied strongly on the waterfall methodology prior 2001, the adoption of Agile has transformed mentalities. Whereas Waterfall took a rigid and result-oriented perspective, Agile emphasise the importance of human interaction to respond flexibly, yet pragmatically, to changes and challenges. The agile methodology incorporates a critical feature in its implementation: the acceptance of not controlling everything.
A project, particularly software projects, are complex and timely. Therefore, it would be fantastic to expect the first draft to be the perfect final product. Because of the errors inherent to the project deliver and the potential unexpected events, a rigid approach can be harmful for the well-being of the project. By enforcing a specific vision and pursuing it at all costs, the end-result can be largely off target, off schedule and off cost, the exact definition of a failure, Olsen(1971)[1].
Agile comprehends that reality and recognizes that a project can fail in certain area, either in the production or the conceptualisation and therefore proposes an iterative approach to palliate these downfalls. By maintaining an open communication channel with the end-users and the different stakeholders, the project manager can redirect the project on the right track as soon as a concern arises; it is called “pivoting”. Pivoting is the spearhead of the methodology and is the reason of the worldwide adoption of the methodology, on top of the tremendous increase of project success over the following years. Despite the obvious changes brought by that approach, Agile did not resolve all the problems of the project management field. After a steady surge in project success rate, the increased slowly reduced and eventually started to stagnate around the mid 2010.
Many scholars have questioned the reason of poor performances of projects for the very beginning of the practice. Their responses often reported the lack of efficient communication between stakeholders, the mismanagement of risks and uncertainty and the inaccuracy of forecasting. Are these elements not solved with Agile would you respond? Apparently not. Digging deeper, it has been proven that these elements often emerge from biased decisions from project mangers; decisions driven by heuristics instead of evidence.