Agile is a hot topic in the business world, and the prevailing belief is that everything should be agile today to help us become faster and better. However, many people don’t fully understand what it truly means to “be agile” or how Agile Project Management has evolved. Does agility genuinely propel our business world forward, or is it merely a passing fad? This article offers insight into what has sparked the “Agile Euphoria,” what Agile and Agility really entail, and how they shape project management. Curious? Then read on.
Agile is the Latest Trend
Everyone is talking about Agile Project Management and agility, and I nearly overlooked this “trend.” This happens to me with other trends as well, such as fashion—where I tend to reject most trends anyway!
On Amazon.com, there is an increasing number of books focused on agility: The Agile Company, Agile Leadership, Agile Project Management, Agile Without Planning, Agile Facilitation, Agile Negotiation, and more. Is everything in the economy becoming agile, or is this a trend that will soon fade away?
The Agile Manifesto
The term “agile” in relation to projects was coined in the spring of 2001 when the Agile Manifesto was signed. This marked the first time that agile values specific to software development were articulated. These values were presented in pairs, with those on the left being prioritized over those on the right. However, this does not imply that the values on the right are without significance.
The Agile Manifesto reads as follows:
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
“That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more”.
I would rather call the agile values of the Agile Manifesto “principles of agile software development”, so that they are not confused with the Scrum values.
The Agile Manifesto May be Misunderstood or Misinterpreted
The Agile Manifesto may be misunderstood or misinterpreted, so the statements were explained in more detail by the authors of the Manifesto through twelve principles.
For example, it is not the opinion that there should be no more documentation. The documents were several hundred pages long, and nobody reads or maintains them.
At the center of the principles is the human being, whether the project team or the customer. The agile principles are an essential guideline for successful agile projects, and they are still fully valid today.
These are Twelve Agile Principles behind the Agile Manifesto:
- Satisfy the customer: Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
- Welcome changing requirements: Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
- Deliver frequently: Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
- Cross-functional and cross-divisional collaboration: Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
- Provide support and trust: Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need and trust them to get the job done.
- Personal communication: The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a Scrum Team is face-to-face conversation.
- Working Software: Working software is the primary measure of progress.
- Sustainable pace: Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
- Pursuit of technical excellence: Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
- Simplicity is essential: Simplicity is the art of maximizing the amount of work that is not done.
- Acting self-organized: The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
- Inspection & adaption: At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
If you look at these twelve principles, you will see that most are applicable not only to agile software projects, but to all project management methods or project types, with the human being at the center, be it the project team or the client.
What is Agility?
The world around us is changing faster than ever. For businesses to succeed, what is often referred to as “business agility” is crucial. Business agility means being able to respond to changing customer demands, shifting market conditions, new technology trends, and even changes in legislation or customer perceptions.
In Project Management, agility is characterized by speed, lightness, and adaptability. This includes:
- Innovating and adapting in a rapidly changing business environment.
- Quickly reprioritizing resources as requirements, technology, and knowledge evolve.
- Reacting swiftly to market changes and emerging trends through close customer interaction.
- Using evolutionary, incremental, and iterative methods to rapidly deliver optimal customer solutions.
In summary, agility means being able to respond quickly to changes, with the goal of maximizing business value by delivering the right solution at the right time.
Agile is the trend, and I believe agility will become increasingly important in the project environment—not just in software development, but also in projects managed with traditional waterfall approaches. However, in other areas, I have serious doubts, even though greater agility is clearly needed there too.
Looking back twenty or thirty years, I still remember when Lean Management, Business Process Reengineering, Six Sigma, or Knowledge Management were the hottest trends. From my perspective, these were promising management methods. Yet, they have only been widely adopted in a few companies or specific functional areas. The concept of self-organizing teams is also not new. They were used successfully in Japanese companies and a few American ones many decades ago—though, like those other trends, they were mostly forgotten until Agile Project Management brought them back into focus..
Being agile with the goal of maximizing business value, with the right solution at the right time.
This was a brief overview of what is meant by agility in the project environment. In the next article you will learn more about which projects are suitable for agile project management and how to use it optimally.
These articles may also interest you:
How to Cultivate an Agile Mindset and to Profit From It
How to Make Your Traditional Project Management More Agile
Here You Can Find Even More Knowledge
Would you like to learn more about how to make your projects more successful with Scrum and Agile Project Management? My book Scrum – How to Successfully Apply Agile Project Management and Scrum takes you an important step further!
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