At the heart of agile software development is the first enumerated principle from the Manifesto for Agile Software Development:
Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
We have fallen into a pattern of not having demonstrable software when an increment concludes. There are heavy sighs when the question arises of what is there to show at product review.
I propose remedying this unvirtuous cycle by trying an experiment. This radical idea is to focus on The Most Important Thing
. We spend time bandying about number of developers and weeks. We don't spend much attention to what is Important
. If something is important we should attack it with virgor and defer new work until completing Important Thing
.
This approach ensures that things get completed. Time spent 'in-progress' for the Epic is minimal. We've all see the task/story that sits at 80% done for 9