Can Someone Explain What Adaptive Software Development Means in Real Projects?

[Alisha]

I keep hearing about what is adaptive software development in discussions around agile and modern workflows, but I’m struggling to understand how it works in practice. How is it different from traditional development models, and when should teams actually use it instead of Scrum or Waterfall?

 

[captainghost]

The fundamental difference is that ASD envisions that you can't actually predict the outcome of a complex project. While Waterfall attempts to plan everything and Scrum attempts to manage it in chunks, ASD handles the process like a living organism. You "Speculate" rather than "Plan" because you're reacting to the fact that you know your initial requirements are likely to be wrong. It's more a question of "frameworking" and in that framework expecting, craving, and thriving on constant failure and rapid correction.

 

[AnnisHayma]

Oh, cool so it's just a professional sounding excuse for when the product owner changes their mind for the fourth time on a Friday afternoon? "Sorry but we aren't indecisive, just being adaptive".

 

[Emmawoods]

It's definitely not winging it, but I can see its giving the appearance from the outside. In a real project, you are using ASD when the domain is brand new like doing something brand new with cutting edge AI or market didn't exist yet. Cliff diving vs other kinds of diving: If you are going to be using Waterfall there, then you're basically marching off of a cliff. ASD forces the developers and the stakeholders to collaborate way more intense than it is in the Scrum. If you aren't talking to your users every single day you aren't doing ASD, you're just doing bad Agile.

 

[Eric]

Think of it in this way: Waterfall is constructing a bridge. You know right from the beginning just where it starts and ends. ASD is like trying to get through a dense forest at night with a flashlight and the flashlight only reaches five feet. You take a few steps (Speculate), seek your group to find if anybody found a trail (Collaborate) and then, you almost walk into a swamp (Learn). Then you pivot.

 

[megamind]

Great another methodology to add to the pile. I bet it still comes to 8 hours a week of meetings and a Jira board that nobody ever looks at.

 

[Lugwig]

Actually, the "Learn" phase is what gets neglected the most in this. In most "Agile" shops, people are simply moving to the next ticket. In ASD, you are strictly required to do a post-mortem on every cycle to see the reason why your "Speculations" were wrong. It's highly based on Complex adaptive System's theory. If your team is not comfortable with the idea that the project plan is a "best guess" rather than a "contract" then ASD will feel like a nightmare.

 

[jameswill8520]

However, is this actually used in the industry anymore? I am of a different opinion than Highsmith: "I feel like Highsmith's original ideas just got absorbed into the more popular Scrum/Kanban frameworks and everyone just uses the term "Adaptive" as a generic adjective now."

 

[ethancarter]

It's heavily used in R&D and start up environments, where the "what" is as much of a mystery as the "how." You use it when the cost of implementing the plan after finding out is wrong is worse than having absolutely no plan. If you're creating your normal CRUD application application for a local bank, just settel for Waterfall or normal Scrum. So don't go making life complex for yourself or your ASD project, unless yours is actually a mess.

 

[Olivier]

So basically: Waterfall: "I know what I am doing." Scrum: "I believe that I know every two weeks what I'm doing." ASD: "I have no clue what is going on, but I am going to learn faster than the chaos can kill me."

 

[rebeccareed]

I've been in a project which claimed to be ASD and it was just a chaotic mess because the "Collaborate" part was just everyone arguing in a Slack channel. For it to be effective you need a very senior team that don't need their hand holding. Junior devs tend to have a harder time with ASD in that they are looking for a spec to work against, and ASD specifically refuses to provide you with that spec until the last second.