What is Agile?

The agile project management framework advocates iterative and collaborative project delivery methods. Agile project management breaks down projects into smaller pieces to incorporate changes and customer feedback. The ultimate goal of agile is faster project release and customer satisfaction.

Why did Agile come into existence?

In earlier times, project management followed the waterfall method. This traditional method could not live up to customer expectations. Much time was spent on unnecessary and unproductive activities like documentation, wrong priorities, etc. There was a need for an innovative and modern project management technique/framework that could quickly adapt to the customer's changing needs, and this was when Agile came into existence.

Who brought Agile into existence?

In the early 90s, Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland developed the "Scrum Framework" to help organizations and developers work on complex projects. In 2001, Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland, and a seventeen-member team signed the Agile manifesto with twelve principles and four values. Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland went beyond software development and addressed broader innovation, product development, and project management issues. The focus was more on customer-centricity, iterative development, and experimenting with new ways of doing things.

What are Agile values?

The agile manifesto has outlined four values. The gist is explained as follows:

1. Significance should be given to persons and personal interactions rather than tools and processes. The focus is establishing client communication rather than getting stuck with protocols.

2. The project should focus on completing the project as per timeline and quality. Previously, every minute detail was captured and documented at the cost of project timeline and quality.

3. Agile focuses on looping the client/customer in the development process and not informing the customer at the beginning and end of the project.

4. Agile emphasizes adapting to change and incorporating change in development. Agile does not advocate adhering to strict plans and following the plan no matter what happens as an outcome.

What are the twelve principles of Agile?

1. Agile's highest priority is keeping customers happy by delivering the software early and continuously.

2. Agile welcomes change throughout the development process. To facilitate change, the entire project is divided into small chunks. Change is incorporated into the entire software delivery process to gain a competitive advantage.

3. Agile recommends delivering the working software to customers in a couple of weeks or a month and taking their feedback. This raises the team's performance standards.

4. Agile suggests that the business team and project/product team collaborate. It also encourages cross-functional team collaboration.

5. Agile encourages self-motivated people in the agile team. Organizations should equip them with all the necessary environment and infrastructure and empower them to be self-managed teams. The agile team should be autonomous.

6. Agile encourages face-to-face communication and discussions between team members. COVID-19 has encouraged a remote style of working and communication with teams, Skype, and other communication tools. In such a scenario, a video call is appreciated.

7. Agile considers working software a measure of success. The working software is delivered to the customer in a sprint, and frequent feedback is taken and incorporated into the development process. Designing a minimum viable product (MVP) rather than fully developed features of the product is encouraged.

8. Agile promotes sustainable project development without burnout among developers. The entire agile team, stakeholders, etc., should work coherently for a long time. This helps improve the project's quality.

9. Agile promotes and encourages collaborative, self-organizing teams that can achieve technical excellence.

10. Agile principles encourage doing things of utmost importance and making a good impact. This implies a laser focus on project objectives and excellent prioritization.

11. Agile advocates that the best technical ideas and architecture emerge from self-organized teams.

12. Agile methodology strongly recommends continuous improvement in tools, processes, and people. Agile does not advocate a strictly defined process or a particular behavior. Agile recommends continuous improvement.

What are agile teams and who are a part of the team?

Agile team is a cross-functional team who are self-organized, with shared skills and values. Typically, an agile team consists of ten or less members. The agile team structure arranges the various elements of an agile team organized to stay focused on the organizational goals and project goals.

Agile team consists of developers, product owners and scrum master.

Developers: Developers include software developers and testers. They can also include architects, programmers, UX specialists, product designers, UX specialists etc.

Scrum Master: A scrum master facilitates daily scrum, and other sprint initiatives. He has to remove impediments in the agile team and facilitate smooth functioning of the agile team. He has to facilitate collaboration and avoid any kind of distraction in the team from getting deviated from project goals.

Product owner: A product owner is the face of the project team before the stakeholders and the customer. He should have the necessary skills to communicate the project requirements to the project team(agile team). He is responsible for scrum backlog management, release management, and stakeholder and client relations management.

What are some popular agile frameworks?

Project management practices present rigid rules for project execution and completion. A framework is a sub-set of methodologies. Agile methodology is a sub-set of project management. The agile framework offers a flexible adaptation of the rules laid down by the project management practices. Some popular agile frameworks which are practically in application are:

Kanban: Kanban is a Japanese technology that means “visual representation.” It is built on the concept of continuous improvement. The progress of a project is visually represented with cards, and the tasks/ work are moved into three categories: to-do, work-in-progress, and completed.

Scrum: The Scrum framework breaks down projects into smaller chunks called ”sprints.” Once the project is divided into sprints, the entire agile team (scrum master, developers, and product owner) ensures the project's delivery within the Scrum framework.

Extreme Programming: Extreme programming(XP) focuses on essential small practices and encourages teams to practice them to the extreme.

Conclusion

The Agile Framework helps any software professional complete projects within the budget and timeline and achieve customer satisfaction. If you wish to learn more about Agile in depth, please enroll in the Agile Framework course.