How to know if Agile is right fit for project or not?

One of the common question I am asked is, How do I know if agile is right fit for my project or not?

While there could be multiple factors influencing this decision, here I am reviewing the top 6 points that shall help you make a decision -

1. Team's location - well, while many would debate on this, but it is not that easy to run agile projects if team is spread across multiple locations/sites and in some cases floors. If you are considering "scrum of scrums" scenario, you may have those scrum teams across multiple locations/sites but 'one scrum team" should ideally be co-located.
2. How urgent the changes are - If changes are urgent, frequent, only model that could save you is "agile", so don't look further,, go for it. It is in the core of agile to be able to support business agility.
3. How clear the requirements are - Sort of connects back to the point #2, if the requirements are not clear upfront (well low level), so this would mean that frequent changes, so agile is the model to go for. 
4. Can it be sliced into smaller usable chunks? - Agile demands the work to be broken down into smaller chunks, and each of that chunk should be "usable" some way. If that's not viable, agile might not really fit as you would end up with large chunks of work that would take several days to finish, making it difficult to adapt to frequent changes if need be, and further taking longer to demo or time to release to end user.
5. Access to PO/users - Agile needs access to Product Owner or user quite regularly (actually PO), and if no one person can take charge of it, agile just won't work. You need someone who can write requirement statements (aka user stories), help groom the stories that development team can understand and implement.
6. Process v/s project - repetitive or new endevour? - Of course, go back to the definition of project - is it really a project or a process, if later, head elsewhere, it is not a candidate for agile.

List doesn't end here, but hope this helps get broad idea to start with. Happy to hear your views.

DevOps Basics - Communication & Ownership

I saw this pic on a slide in an online tutorials about DevOps, and it immediately caught my attention, hey! I recognize this!

How common is it to throw the stuff over the wall....but wait! we do take ownership of the 'stuff with us', but probably when done with 'our part', we tend to pass it over without too much of deliberation, or concern, or knowledge about it thereafter.

(image courtesy udacity.com)

...and what if the end user (customer) throws is back too!?...remember when that happened to you last time?...to me that happened just last week.

If I go back few years, I have had stuff thrown over to me and having no clue what to do with it, and how to deal with the situation, task or whatever, and I recall having done this myself (hey unintentional! OK :P), and stuff happens, and the question is - can it be avoided....Yes!, of course.

Communication is the key! To some it comes with ease, while for few others it is just ain't easy. Just like everything else, it takes practice, more practice and little courage and I heard beer works great too :D !

Ownership and a bit of attitude to pick up and fix the stuff! Some of us might think that "ownership" means more actions on oneself, but in my opinion ownership gives you more choices to act, and better control over any situation.

...and Break the silos!...is it same as communication?...well I think it is more about those 'virtual' walls we usually have created, than 'communication;...what say? Silos could exist between two people sitting next to each other, who talk so often. It is like being a bird in 'cage without walls'. Sorry I just over-complicated the definition of silos :P

We all love to get the things done, no one wants to be on team that has customer throwing stuff back at them, is n't it?, but working in silos is just so convenient at times, people just find it easy to 'throw over the wall'.

Enough, I am done! Going back to my next slide...