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But what does it mean to “go Agile”—and how do you know the
Agile method will work for your team and projects? In this
chapter, we’ll cover what the Agile methodology is, how the
Agile process works, and the pros and cons of Agile project
management.
What is the Agile methodology in project management?
The Agile methodology is an iterative project management
approach designed around collaborative cycles of planning,
execution, and delivery.
Agile is not so much a methodology as a mindset based on a
common set of values and principles. These Agile values and
principles advocate for self-organizing teams, adaptive
planning, early delivery, and continuous improvement. However, a
true Agile model requires organizational transformation to reach
its full potential.
Agile is less about how to do things and more about why you do
them. For example, the Agile process doesn’t dwell in
documentation like the Waterfall methodology does because it’s
focused on shipping things faster. This quicker delivery goal is
also the driver behind Agile’s frequent, meaningful feedback
loops and constant engagement with stakeholders.
The history of Agile: What is the Agile Manifesto?
In 2001, 17 software developers met at a resort in Snowbird,
Utah, to discuss lightweight development methods. Fed up with
traditional approaches that relied heavily on documentation,
they felt there had to be a more efficient way to develop and
deliver software that allowed more autonomy to the developer.
Together, they published the
Manifesto for Agile Software Development, which is rooted in adaptive planning, early delivery, and
continuous improvement—all with an eye toward being able to
respond to change quickly and easily.
The Agile Manifesto laid out a set of 4 values and 12
principles. Organizations must understand and follow these
values and principles to create a truly Agile environment for
their teams and projects.
4 values of the Agile Manifesto
The Agile Manifesto revolves around 4 core values that serve as
the foundation of the Agile approach for software development.
Here are the Agile values you should know:
Individuals and interactions over processes and
tools: This Agile value is easy to understand because people
respond to business needs and drive the development process.
If processes or tools drive development, the team’s less
responsive to change and less likely to meet customer needs.
Working software over comprehensive documentation: More traditional processes spend a lot of time documenting
a product for development and ultimate delivery, and this was
often a cause for long delays in software development. Agile
doesn’t necessarily eliminate documentation, but it
streamlines it in a form that gives the developer what’s
needed to do the work without getting bogged down in the
details.
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation: Agile teams collaborate closely with customers throughout
the project’s lifecycle to get an understanding of goals. The
idea behind this Agile value is to avoid spending tons of time
negotiating a contract that’s only going to change down the
road.
Responding to change over following a plan:
Agile values flexibility because plans inevitably change, and
sometimes those changes can create issues. The Agile
environment does everything to remove project issues by
expecting and preparing for change from the get-go. Short
iteration cycles make it easy to shift priorities and
accommodate new requests without disrupting the entire plan.
It’s important to remember that Agile isn’t a process as much as
a behavior. Agile values and principles focus on collaboration,
iteration, and the ability to adapt to change.
12 Agile principles
Agile revolves around a set of 12 guiding principles. These
Agile Manifesto principles
are less about telling you what to do than giving you the
ability to make a smart decision.
Satisfy the customer: Customer satisfaction
takes priority and comes as a result of early and continuous
delivery of valuable software.
Welcome change: It’s okay to change
requirements, even late in development, as being open to
change can give customers a competitive advantage.
Deliver frequently: Agile shortens time
frames with the goal of delivering working software
frequently—often in a matter of weeks vs. months.
Work together: Close, daily cooperation
between business people and developers happens through the
project lifecycle to ensure the product meets evolving goals.
Trust and support: If you build projects
around motivated individuals and create a supportive
environment for them, you can trust your team to do the work.
Face-to-face conversation: Face-to-face
conversation is the clearest and fastest way to relay
information, and colocation makes this easier for Agile
teams.
Working software: Working software leads to
happy customers and serves as the primary measure of progress
in Agile projects.
Sustainable development: Maintaining a
consistent and sustainable pace enables everyone to ship work
at regular intervals indefinitely.
Continuous attention: Keeping a constant eye
on technical excellence and good design paves the way for
better agility.
Maintain simplicity: Simplify by maximizing
the amount of work not done so you can get your product off
the ground faster.
Self-organizing teams: Teams that are
motivated and allowed to take ownership of a project produce
the best architectures, requirements, and designs.
Reflect and adjust: Agile teams regularly
reflect on how to get work done more effectively and adjust
accordingly for continuous improvement.
Agile was developed for the software industry, so these values
and principles relate most closely to development teams. That
said, many other organizations and team types have adopted Agile
methods with varying levels of success.
Industries that use Agile project management
Any industry that has some level of uncertainty can use Agile.
Those may include, but are certainly not limited to:
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If you’re new to Agile project management, you’ve probably heard
of Scrum and maybe even wondered about the difference between
Agile and Scrum.
The truth is, there really is no Agile vs. Scrum comparison.
Scrum is simply one popular framework you can use to practice
Agile development.
Let’s take a closer look at how the Agile process works when
using Scrum as your framework.
How the Agile process works using a Scrum framework
The Agile principles and values are employed really well in the
Scrum methodology. Scrum is the most widely used Agile
development framework because it’s relatively simple to
implement and there are a lot of resources and training programs
available to help you understand the practice.
The Scrum method also solves a lot of problems software
developers have struggled with in the past, such as convoluted
development cycles, inflexible project plans, delayed
production, poor collaboration, and more.
The Scrum team
In Scrum, the vision for the project and the priority of its
features are determined by a product owner, who is closest to
the product’s goals, stakeholders, and users. The work is done
by a development team who’s 100% dedicated to a single project
and works in short cycles called sprints.
Scrum teams are self-organizing and don’t need a traditional
project manager. Instead, the team is led by a Scrum Master
whose main job is to clear away all obstacles to work getting
done more efficiently. The Scrum Master also facilitates all of
the Scrum ceremonies, or meetings, to help guide the team
through the process.
Scrum ceremonies
The Scrum process is made up of a series of events surrounding
sprints. Sprints provide a structure for checking in on the work
being done and pushing more frequent deliveries from the team.
Sprints are completed in 2-to-4-week cycles, and the ceremonies
help structure the sprint by using a
product backlog
of features or user stories to direct the work being done.
The product backlog is essentially a list of all features or
stories to be accomplished on the project. It’s typically owned
by the product owner, who can set the priority of work to be
done and even make decisions about work to be added or removed
based on the needs of the user or client.
Let’s take a closer look at the Scrum ceremonies that help teams
give sprints structure:
Sprint planning: A sprint typically lasts
anywhere between 2 and 4 weeks, with the goal of delivering a
working product (or part of it). Sprint planning enables the
team to estimate tasks or stories and determine what work
they’ll take on in the sprint backlog, which essentially
serves as the task list for the next sprint.
Daily Scrum: This is a daily check-in where
the team gets together to talk about what they worked on
yesterday, what they’re doing today, and if there are any
blockers in their way.
Sprint review: In this meeting, the whole
team sits down with stakeholders to review or demo work done
in the sprint and get feedback or approvals.
Sprint retrospectives: This is an important
meeting where the team talks through what worked and what
didn’t in the last sprint. Everyone commits to making changes
together to improve communication, collaboration, and even
deliverables to make future sprints go more smoothly.
Once the development team completes a sprint cycle, they start
over and continue with the next priority, based on the
prioritization of work waiting for them in the backlog.
Agile project management with Scrum is super-flexible. However,
it does require a level of management and guidance to ensure
teams are free of blockers and can continue to build on and
improve products.
While Scrum is the focus of this chapter, you should know there
are other methods to explore and add to your Agile toolkit. Here
are additional Agile methodologies you might consider:
Kanban: This visual approach puts time and
resources aside and focuses on tasks. If you’ve used a tool
that shows cards move through a progression of states to
indicate where it is in process, you’ve used a
Kanban board. The board allows teams to quickly point out and understand
project obstacles, discuss them, and collaborate on ways to
get past them.
Extreme Programming (XP): XP describes 4
basic activities that are performed in the software
development process that allow for change and rapid revision:
coding, testing, listening, and designing. Teams organize in
shorter sprints and can immediately change the course of work
being planned or executed.
Adaptive Project Framework (APF): With APF,
you
document project requirements, functions, subfunctions, and features before determining
project goals. The team then operates in iterative stages
rather than sprints, but stakeholders can change the
project scope
at the start of each stage. So, truly, you adapt to the
project—and its people.
Agile methodology pros and cons
Now let’s break down the pros and cons of Agile project
management. We’ll use Scrum as an example since it’s one of the
more popular Agile methodologies.
Advantages of the Agile methodology
Here are the big key benefits you’ll find in Agile project
management with Scrum:
Focus on quality: Because products are built
collaboratively and tested during sprint cycles, the product
has many eyes on it at all times. And the flexibility of the
process enables teams to pivot and make a change for the
better if something’s not working well.
Lightweight process: Scrum offers a light
framework for helping teams work together. Lower-level
documentation and collaboration through ceremonies means the
focus is on rapid delivery and iteration.
Continuing evaluation and optimization: The
measuring and evaluating of the work—and how it’s done—allows
accurate and early visibility into the progress, or even
problems, with a project. Plus, sprint reviews regularly open
the door to act on feedback faster.
Reduced risk: Agile methodologies virtually
eliminate the chances of absolute project failure—unless a
team is just not performing well. But the fact that teams work
in sprints toward releasing a working product means there is
always progress. Even if that progress is open to change, a
team is working toward goals set by the product owner.
High customer satisfaction: Because change is
easy to adapt to in a Scrum framework, customers tend to be
happy because they have a higher probability of getting what
they want.
Agile method disadvantages
Despite its advantages, Agile’s not made for every team or
project. Take these considerations into account to ensure Agile
methods are a good fit for you:
Changing behaviors: Agile requires not only a
project manager or team to buy into the values and principles,
but the entire organization. And that can be difficult because
change is hard for many people. In order to make a full “Agile
transformation,” teams need to be trained and fully invested
in the methods.
Understanding and embracing roles: Scrum
roles are important, especially when it comes to the product
owner and Scrum Master. And it can be tough to find trained
individuals who can write user stories properly, manage
conflicting priorities, and facilitate work successfully.
Remember, training is necessary to make Scrum work well.
Lack of dedicated cross-functional teams: If
your team is pulled in several directions or simply assigned
to more than one project, they will not be able to dedicate
themselves to a single project and the rest of their team.
That will lead to a breakdown in process, collaboration, and
team morale.
Collaboration: If your team doesn’t work in a
space where they can freely meet and talk—or have the
resources to do so remotely—you’ll end up in silos. And when
that happens, the spirit of Agile breaks down.
Continue your learning
Now that you’ve got the Agile basics down, you’re ready to move
on! Keep reading to learn how Agile and Waterfall methods
compare to each other.
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