Meet Caleb, Caleb works for ACME Inc, a client of Agile Inc. The client company has brought in Agile Inc. to build their new system that should speed up their orders by up to 150%. Caleb is the PO (Product Owner) from the client side, but sadly has never had experience with Agile.

Caleb thinks he knows what the product needs to do and sets a meeting with Agile Inc. in order to set out the requirements of the product. The meeting goes well, and Caleb feels very happy with the outcome from the meeting and approves the project for development with Agile Inc.

As Agile Inc. work entirely in an Agile manner they are going to walk Caleb through the process. So they explain that they will start building some of the requirements that Caleb outlined in their first meeting.

3 Weeks pass and Agile Inc. inform Caleb that he should come in for a demo of the prototype. Caleb comes in, and to his dismay, he realises that Agile Inc. have not delivered what he thought they were going to. He talks to Molly, the scrum master of the team, asking

"what happened?"

"How did you get it so wrong?"

Molly explains,

"Caleb, this is all part of the process, as we all see things slightly differently. It is better to start off getting things wrong and correct them early than deliver something wrong in release."

Caleb understands and corrects explains his vision to the developers in the team and helps them to see his vision for the project. The developers gain a greater understanding and get back to work.

Another 3 weeks pass and Caleb is called in for another demo, this time he notices that only some of the corrections have been made, but the development team have also made progress in other areas. Caleb is starting to understand how requirements work, but feels he needs some more clarification so asks Molly

"So I understand that the project was not 100% on track last time. Why have all the corrections not been made, but progress in other areas been made?"

Molly explains to Caleb the process of what the developers can commit to

"Although you can express the things that are wrong with the product at anytime, the development team make a commitment to a goal at the start of every 3 weeks. This is what they are aiming to achieve. The corrections will be made, it just might not be this sprint"

Caleb understands more than he did and leaves the meeting satisfied with the project so far. He reports to ACME Inc that the project is on track and gathers more requirements for the product.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Scope Creep