(Janeen Blanton is vice president, Insurance Productivity Services & Agile Center of Excellence at Salient Federal Solutions.)

It's easy to see the benefits of agile development when used for software development, but what about package implementations? There are almost always customizations, but the majority of the work is predefined and regimented. Can Agile be of benefit in these types of projects?  The answer is absolutely yes.

Let me start by making a statement that will make Scrum Masters everywhere cringe. Agile is not Scrum. Scrum is probably what most of you think of when I say Agile. However, it is only one of many processes—along with Extreme Programming, Kanban, Scrumban, Lean Programming and several others—that can be used to facilitate Agile projects. Agile, itself, is not a process. It is a value system that helps us form an environment where teamwork and continuous value delivery thrive. So, what are some key Agile values? 

• Collaboration. Gone are the days of writing a requirements novel and throwing it over the wall to the developers. Agile is about working together as a team to produce a higher quality product, by defining requirements at the time of development, and using immediate feedback to fine-tune functionality.
• Frequent, meaningful communication. With Agile, the focus is on doing the work—not talking about it, not writing about it—doing it. Meetings are focused and time boxed so that only the important things are addressed. The whole team comes away better informed and focused on the task at hand.
• Early and continuous delivery of value. Rather than the traditional big-bang delivery at the end, Agile provides incremental deliveries of production ready functionality throughout the life of the project. This provides a means to see an earlier return from your technology investment. 
• Responding to change. Requirements change over time—often between the time you write them and the time they are configured. With Agile, this is not only easily accommodated, it is embraced.

So that all sounds great, but how exactly can this be applied to core systems implementations?