Agile is the latest of 20+ fads being hawked for quality. It appears as a contorted concoction such as "Agile-Six-Sigma-Lean-TQM". In reality, Agile is a software development fad that has nothing whatsoever to do with quality.
Traditional ProgrammingIn the 60's and 70's, computing was carried out on a central computer with "dumb" terminals displaying text on a black screen. If you wanted a business application, a detailed specification was written and a team of programmers disappeared into their COBOL cave for years, before emerging with your application.
Tough if the application wasn't what the users imagined. There was no other way. Years of modifications would follow.
WaterfallThe waterfall approach was introduced in 1970. It steps from planning to implementation. In some situations this is still applicable, such as when an external contractor is employed to develop part of an application. The specification must be watertight!
RAD
In the 80's "mid range" computers ruled, primarily Digital Equipment (DEC) and Data General (DG). In 1982, the Corvision software from Cortex was introduced for DEC VAX computers with PCs. It had a graphical interface that allowed users to see what the final software would look like. The term RAD (Rapid Application Development) was coined. RAD was widely promoted by James Martin.
Graphical InterfacesIn 1979, the Xerox developed the first prototype for a graphical user interface for a PC. This was copied by Apple in 1984 with their Lisa. In 1985 Bill Gates released his copy, as Windows 1.0.
Graphical programmingConcurrently with the evolution of PCs, graphical languages such as GRaIL (Graphical Input Language) were being developed. In 1991 Visual Basic was released. These languages allowed rapid development of what the users would see in their final application.
RAD morphed into Rapid Iterative Prototyping (RIP). The idea was that instead of a massive traditional "waterfall" project, graphical programming could be used to quickly throw together prototypes for users to look at. Users would suggest changes and the program code was built iteratively.
AgileThe next evolution of RAD to RIP was Agile. It has spawned more variants such as XP (extreme programming), Dynamic Systems Development (DSDM), and Adaptive Software Development (ASD)
QualityWhat has all this got to do with Quality? Absolutely nothing! These days consultants know that there is always a quality manager somewhere who is gullible enough to buy into any new fad. No doubt we will continue to see more worthless "quality" fads, perhaps XQ (eXtreme Quality) or AQ (Adaptive Quality).
Quality today has regressed to the Dark Ages. Forget the fads. Focus on the fundamentals of quality from the giants, Professors Lewis, Deming, Ishikawa, and Drs Taguchi, Shewhart and Wheeler.
by Dr Tony Burns BE (Hon 1) PhD (Chem Eng)