Delaying decisions and commitments

The Lean concept behind this principle is that decision-making should never be rushed. In fact, you should wait until that last practical moment to make most decisions. This strategy is the exact opposite of what occurs in the traditional waterfall-based software development model. The waterfall model forces project teams to make detailed project plans based on highly uncertain and speculative information. Then, the development team was expected to follow those plans as if they were gospel.

In contrast, Agile-based software development methodologies, such as Scrum, recognize that markets change and that customer needs to evolve over time. Given those facts, if we make decisions early, it's very likely they will be wrong. The more uncertain the market or the more dynamic the customer environment is, the more likely this statement is true.

Delaying decisions on priorities, the architecture, and system designs until we have better facts on...