Agile development methods and application value

An article entitled “BT adopts agile programming” came to my attention today, and had me thinking about how the development method used for a project can have a significant effect on application value.  BT as perhaps you know is the British telecommunications group, and they have seen significant productivity as a result of using agile development methods.  They began using agile development methods back in 2005.

The article I have referenced indicates that using Agile development methods they realized software development cycles which were a minimum of four times faster.  Given the size of BT, it takes no stretch of the imagination to understand how agile development methods have had such a significant impact on the application value.

Since a part of application value is established by the cost of developing the application, certainly the cost savings as realized by BT have a significant part in establishing application value.

I highly recommend this article as a good read.  In addition, there is another article that also makes reference to how BT utilized agile programming.  “Agile Delivery at British Telecom” is also an excellent read.