What are the agile rules?

• Iterate - iterative development is like a waterfall lifecycle repeated every few weeks, not years. Thus it is the basic framework that allows you to change course according to your business needs. Iteration allows you to approach concurrency. It becomes wasteful to tie together long stages of requirements analysis and design with costly documentation, whose destiny is to become out of date prior to any coding. But an iterative framework is not enough. Your development practices must also strive to make your software fit for use in its business environment. That's where communication and demonstration come in.
• Communicate - Communication is on an eye-to-eye level, supported with living diagrams rather than tomes of questionable and difficult-to-maintain documentation. The iterative framework gives you periodic opportunities to strengthen the relationships between individuals - you, developers, users, marketers, and, most importantly, your customers. Simultaneously, a project's progress will become transparent to whomever you choose - no more surprises just before the due date. As for your development teams, Agile Rules will coach them on techniques that enhance communication and learning. As skills migrate among team members, you can plan your next iteration around business needs, rather than individual's domain knowledge.
• Demonstrate - Demonstration, in the form of testing, is where the proof of the pudding lies. How do you know a requirement is satisfied? Agile Rules will work with your SQA organization to allow your business personnel write requirements as acceptance tests. You pass the test; you've met the requirement. But there's more to it than that. Agile Rules will show your development team how to design so that all the code is testable. This will reduce latent defects, the most devilish and costly problem with software. Moreover, the tests are developed incrementally, so that the quality of the testing code itself does not come into question.