So, what is Agile?
Agile is a set of values and principles upon which many software development methods are based, such as Scrum, XP and Lean. All these methods implement frequent delivery of a high quality product, evolving requirements and self-organising teams.
Agile projects value customer collaboration and use this to continually assess their success and direction. If necessary accept valued change even late in the project cycle.
When using Agile we see the focus of projects move from the traditional “what was needed and are we there yet” to “what is needed and what’s the next priority”.
Agile doesn’t just create focus on the success of the project but also the success of the process for the team. There are frequent and mandated feedback and focus points where the whole team inspect the process and adapt it to work for them.
The Agile Manifesto (the values on which we build our products) was written by a group of experienced software industry experts in February 2001. This can be found below:
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
As you can see the Manifesto was written with software development in mind. However, Agile is being branched out to other areas of the business and we are seeing tools created to allow your business to react to change and continuously inspect and adapt its direction at a low cost with high benefit.
