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Is agile development suitable for a startup that will outsource development?

I dont know much about agile at the moment, but just got hold of a book about agile.

My reason for asking is that ive recently started reading The Startup Owner's Manual and its mentioned a few times about customer development and agile development combined.

I have skimmed through info regarding agile and hope that its not suited only to large teams, and is suited to bootstrapping startups that dont necessarily have people all in one place maybe?

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First, read the book (or at least a few articles) to understand what Agile is and how it works before asking questions about its applications. – dnbrv Apr 15 '12 at 4:25
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But isn't that the point of this site, to ask questions about something when i simply dont know or that im unsure about? I read about allsorts but occasionally i come up against something that seems so spread out that i believe asking a question might be the more sensible thing to do. I understand the need for questions to be on topic etc, but a Q&A site that doesn't welcome questions before prior knowledge? I mean c'mon is that meant to be funny. It puts people off. – user14718 Apr 15 '12 at 12:38
There's a difference between saying "I just heard this buzzword. Can I used it for my thing?" and "I'm trying to implement this methodology in my situation. Am I doing things the right way?". – dnbrv Apr 15 '12 at 15:35
Its a bit rude of you to suggest that, i have not just heard of agile, agile doesn't appear to be something that i could wrap my head around in an afternoon then decide that its suitable or not. – user14718 Apr 15 '12 at 17:44
It wasn't me who said "I dont know much about agile at the moment, but just got hold of a book about agile." You can answer your own question once you understand the principles of agile development. – dnbrv Apr 15 '12 at 17:53
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3 Answers

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Agile is not just for large teams, in fact there are agile questions on other SE sites that discuss the perfect size.

Since you will be paying external developers you can include the requirement that agile be used. One benefit is that you will get a useable application at the end of every sprint, instead of only getting a completed application at the end of months or years of development.

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thanks, from what you have explained it appeals to me quite a lot, i like the benefit that you mentioned about a useable application at the end of every sprint, i can see why it has been mentioned in the Startup book and it being suited to the customer development process. – user14718 Apr 15 '12 at 17:52
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We have been doing this exactly for our product development clients across the globe for last several years. We use Agile Scrum and collaborate regularly with product owner over Skype, gotomeeting and our own online project task board. It can be done and is beefing done regularly by us and several other providers.

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Agile has the benefit to integrate the customer much more into the team. In the Scrum method there is a role called product owner which you should investigate. Instead of a long book you might want toread this pretty short scrum guide: http://www.scrum.org/storage/scrumguides/Scrum_Guide.pdf

Of course there is more in agile than scrum but you will get the idea behind it quickly wuth this guide.

I must disagree with moran on one point: you will not get a running app on EACH sprint. the first are not giving a ready app to you. And there might be features which cannot be done in one sprint.

if you use tools like jira greenhopper (there are hosted apps avail) you reflect you project status in no time. It really helps you, esp when you outsouirce development. just make you understand your method (kanban, scrum, xp whatever).

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