How to Succeed in Delivering Software Projects Using Agile

In this article we’re going to take a fresh look at what actually makes “Agile” delivery successful. Not the buzzwords, not the ritualised ceremonies, and not the endless debates about which flavour is best—but the underlying steps and principles that help teams deliver predictable outcomes in an uncertain environment.

We’ll explore the ideas that sit behind the Agile approach, the risks and failure modes that often appear during adoption, and how you can increase your chances of success by measuring the right things. In particular, we’ll look at how KPIs can provide clarity, and how maturity models (used carefully) can help prioritise improvement activity rather than create bureaucracy.

And just as a quick reminder: “Agile” is a set of practices that enable teams to rapidly build or deliver solutions that meet customer needs. The intent is straightforward. The execution, as many teams discover, is not.

The History

The Agile Manifesto is often spoken about as if it introduced “Agile” to the world in 2001. In reality it codified a set of ideas that had already been emerging for years—partly because traditional delivery approaches were struggling to cope with the pace and complexity of modern software change.

By the early 1990s, as PC computing and enterprise systems became widespread, software development was facing a stubborn pattern: estimates regularly missed the mark—sometimes by a factor of three or more. Worse, the longer projects took, the more likely it became that the business context shifted underneath them. Requirements changed, priorities moved, markets evolved, and organisations restructured. That meant many programmes were cancelled mid-flight, and those that did eventually complete often failed to meet the real needs that had emerged during the wait.

In complex environments—such as aerospace, defence, and large-scale national infrastructure—those problems could be amplified. Long delivery cycles and tightly coupled systems meant delays of an order of magnitude were not unusual, and “available for use” became a distant milestone rather than a near-term objective.

There was also a recurring organisational pattern: for products where software was only one element (telecoms switches, vehicles, aircraft, industrial systems), software delivery was often treated as an afterthought. It would start late, after the physical product or “big design” had matured—only for teams to discover that the software had become the most changeable and complex part of the system.

The Agile Manifesto was a response to these realities. In 2001, a group of 17 experienced practitioners articulated an alternative approach—one designed to shorten feedback loops, reduce the cost of change, and get working software into users’ hands earlier. The goal wasn’t simply to “go faster”. It was to stop building in the dark.

The promise was compelling:

• Users could realise some business benefits sooner, rather than waiting for a perfect-but-late release.
• Delivery teams could gain rapid feedback on direction, value, and usability—reducing the risk of building the wrong thing for months.

The Agile Manifesto

At its core, the Agile Manifesto sets out four values:

• individuals and interactions over processes and tools;
• working software over comprehensive documentation;
• customer collaboration over contract negotiation; and
• responding to change over following a plan.

These values are often quoted, but their impact comes from what they replace. They push teams away from a world where “delivery” is the execution of a fixed plan, and toward a world where delivery is an adaptive process—one that prioritises collaboration, learning, and practical outcomes.

“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” highlights that delivery success is primarily a people problem. Tools matter, but they don’t substitute for communication, trust, decision making, and shared understanding. It also implies something many organisations struggle with: Agile teams need space to self-organise and solve problems, rather than waiting for control and instruction from above.

“Working software over comprehensive documentation” is not a rejection of documentation. It is a warning about the cost of pretending documentation is progress. Agile pushes teams to prove value through working increments—then document what matters as they learn.

“Customer collaboration over contract negotiation” recognises that requirements are rarely complete or stable, and that outcomes improve when customers are involved continuously rather than treated as a sign-off gate. Agile tries to turn feedback into an advantage, not an interruption.

“Responding to change over following a plan” acknowledges what everyone already knows: the plan will change. Agile teams do not avoid planning; they plan in a way that anticipates change and reduces the penalties when it arrives.

The Principles

Alongside the values, there are 12 principles that explain the behaviours that make the values real. Many teams have seen them before, but it’s worth revisiting what they collectively emphasise: early value, continuous delivery, close collaboration, sustainable pace, technical excellence, simplicity, and regular reflection.

Taken together, they’re a blueprint for reducing waste and increasing learning—two things that matter more than ever when delivery is complex and change is constant.

The Different Flavours of Agile

The core values—customer focus, collaboration, flexibility and continuous improvement—have led to multiple delivery styles. Each is Agile in intent, but different in emphasis:

• Scrum focuses on time-boxed delivery in short sprints, structured roles, and cadence.
• Kanban focuses on flow, visibility of work, limiting work in progress, and reducing bottlenecks.
• Extreme Programming (XP) focuses heavily on engineering quality, practices such as pair programming, refactoring, and test-first approaches.
• Lean Software Development focuses on eliminating waste, optimising the whole system, and delivering minimal viable value early.
• Feature Driven Development (FDD) focuses on delivering value through incremental, feature-based planning and execution.
• Test Driven Development (TDD) is less a full delivery methodology and more an engineering practice that can significantly influence quality and maintainability.

No single flavour is universally “best”. The right choice depends on what you are building, your constraints, and what problems you are trying to solve. The mistake is to adopt ceremonies without adopting the learning and discipline that makes them worthwhile.

KPIs for Agile Delivery

As organisations adopt Agile, leadership often asks a predictable question: “How do we know it’s working?” That question is valid. The risk is answering it with vanity metrics, or by measuring things that teams can game.

The right metrics depend on context, but a useful set of delivery KPIs typically aims to measure flow, quality, value, and predictability over time. The goal isn’t to create pressure; it’s to create visibility so teams can learn and improve.

Here are some commonly used measures, and what they can reveal:

• Cycle Time: How long work takes from start to finish. Useful for spotting bottlenecks and reducing friction.
• Lead Time: How long it takes from a request being made to value being delivered. Useful for understanding responsiveness to business need.
• Throughput: How much work is completed in a given period. Useful for understanding capacity and constraints.
• Velocity: Often used in Scrum to understand delivery rate per sprint, but should be treated as a planning tool—not a performance weapon.
• Defect Rate: A signal of quality and the effectiveness of engineering and test practices.
• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) / Net Promoter Score (NPS): Signals of perceived value and experience—not perfect, but important when used alongside other measures.
• Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD): A visual way to understand flow and congestion across workflow states.
• Burn-up / Burn-down: Useful for understanding progress toward a scope boundary, though they can be misleading if scope churn isn’t visible.

The critical point is how these metrics are used. If metrics become a tool for blame, teams will hide problems. If metrics are treated as feedback, teams will surface reality earlier and improve faster.

Implementation Challenges

Even with good intent, organisations often struggle to implement meaningful measurement:

• Lack of standardisation: Teams are different. One size rarely fits all—especially at scale.
• Data collection friction: Without integrated tooling, collecting reliable data becomes manual and inconsistent.
• Cost and capability: Tooling, training and ongoing discipline require investment. Without it, measurement becomes patchy and untrusted.

Implementation Benefits

When measurement is done well, the benefits compound:

• Improved quality as defect trends highlight where engineering discipline and testing need attention.
• Faster delivery as cycle time and lead time expose bottlenecks and rework.
• Higher customer satisfaction as value delivery becomes more consistent and aligned to need.
• Better decision making as leaders can act on evidence rather than assumptions.

Agile Maturity Assessment

Agile maturity assessments are frequently debated, and rightly so. Used poorly, they can become a bureaucratic scoring exercise that rewards compliance with rituals. Used well, they can provide leadership and teams with a shared language for improvement—especially when outcomes aren’t meeting expectations.

Senior stakeholders often care about a few consistent themes: delivery confidence, cost, benefit, risk, and predictability. Maturity assessment can be a bridge between that viewpoint and the operational reality of engineering teams—so long as it stays grounded in real outcomes.

A practical assessment approach typically includes:

1. Identify areas of focus: process, tooling, engineering quality, culture, and organisational constraints.
2. Establish a baseline: interviews, surveys, observation, artefact review, delivery data.
3. Define a maturity model: clear levels and clear criteria that are meaningful to your environment.
4. Assess and rate: consistently, with evidence.
5. Analyse results: identify constraints, root causes, and patterns.
6. Create an action plan: prioritised improvements with owners and timeframes.
7. Monitor progress: review regularly, adjust and iterate.

The Agile Maturity Assessment Model

There are many maturity models, and organisations often borrow from:

• SAFe for scaling and value stream focus.
• Scrum-focused maturity models for team practice and organisational support.
• Broader Agile maturity models that assess culture, flow, and continuous improvement.

The point isn’t the label; it’s whether the model helps you target the changes that matter most.

Developing a tailored Agile Maturity Model

A simple five-level model (inspired by CMMI-style thinking) can be useful when it describes real capability rather than process theatre:

1. Ad-hoc: inconsistent practice; reliance on heroes; limited shared discipline.
2. Repeatable: emerging habits; basic cadence; partial alignment; inconsistent engineering quality.
3. Defined: consistent ways of working; predictable sprint outcomes; shared language and roles.
4. Managed: active measurement and improvement; engineering maturity is visible and improving.
5. Optimised: high automation; continuous delivery; sustainable pace; evidence-driven improvement at scale.

The model is only useful if it helps prioritise practical improvement, not if it becomes a scoreboard.

The Top Issues that Affect Quality and Success of Agile Projects

Agile does not make delivery easy; it simply gives teams a better chance to learn early and respond. Many failure modes are not unique to Agile—they’re familiar delivery challenges expressed in a faster cadence:

1. Poorly defined requirements and unclear success outcomes.
2. Limited resources and overloaded teams.
3. Poor communication across teams and stakeholders.
4. Lack of experience with Agile practices and, more importantly, Agile thinking.
5. Lack of visibility into progress, risk, and blockers.
6. Weak risk management and unmanaged dependencies.
7. Poor estimation leading to unrealistic planning and pressure.
8. Insufficient or inappropriate documentation that leaves teams guessing later.
9. Weak QA and test discipline creating rework and instability.
10. Low user involvement reducing feedback quality.
11. Poor UI/UX design harming adoption and value realisation.
12. Poor change management causing chaos when change inevitably arrives.

This isn’t a checklist to judge teams. It’s a set of signals that help identify where improvement effort will have the biggest impact.

Top Activities to Improve Quality and Success in “Agile” Delivery

Agile works best when it is treated as a system—where planning, communication, engineering, and learning reinforce each other.

• Planning and prioritisation: define scope boundaries, agree outcomes, and keep priorities explicit.
• Communication: maintain regular, honest engagement with stakeholders; surface problems early.
• Collaboration: create shared ownership and reduce hand-offs; build cross-functional capability.
• Testing: shift quality earlier; automate where possible; use testing to increase confidence, not delay release.
• Documentation: capture what is needed to operate, maintain, and evolve the service—without pretending documentation is delivery.
• Continuous improvement: use retrospectives and metrics to drive targeted changes, then validate impact.

Conclusion

Agile delivery succeeds when teams make the principles real in day-to-day practice. In practical terms, that means:

1. Define clear goals and outcomes so the team knows what “good” looks like.
2. Establish an agreed way of working that supports consistency without killing adaptability.
3. Create an environment for collaboration where the right people can solve problems quickly.
4. Plan releases with intent—enough structure to deliver, enough flexibility to adapt.
5. Implement quality assurance as a discipline, not a gate—so confidence grows as delivery progresses.

To sum up: Agile asks teams to value customer satisfaction, rapid feedback, quality engineering, and continuous improvement. When those values are paired with clear goals, disciplined execution, and evidence-driven learning, organisations materially improve their chances of delivering outcomes that matter—faster, with less waste, and with greater confidence.