Oscillation versus Iteration
by Jim Highsmith, 8 December 2011 | The Agile Blogosphere
This post is from Jim Highsmith .com by Jim Highsmith. Click here to see the original post in full.
Short iterations can cause Agile teams to lose focus and begin oscillating rather than iterating. This can happen from several perspectives—business, technical, user—and it’s something that Agile teams need to be aware of and guard against. When customers change their minds on an user interface issue over and over again—oscillation may be the issue. When developers skip from one design to another over and over—oscillation may be the issue. When product owners churn stories into and out of an iteration—oscillation may be the issue.
Iterations converge on a completed story, feature, or objective. Oscillations send us back and forth between states with little forward progress. It’s difficult at times to tell the difference, but when an oscillating situation seems to be happening, someone needs to stand back and say, “stop.” This is the time to stop and re-evaluate the situation. Two typical problems are: 1) the participants don’t understand the problem, or 2) the participants have different opinions about the solution. In either case, continuing on won’t resolve the issue.
Often the problems arise from not having a well-defined...
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