What Is Agile?

Fast and Nimble - quick and exact in movement and thoughts. Agile is a framework, not a methodology. Agile is based on discovery with respect for people and organization to deal with unpredictability and unsolved problems. There are many flavors of Agile frameworks, each providing an incremental release strategy and an iterative development strategy.

It's more than a set of practices. It is something you become, not something you do.

Waterfall

Agile

Sequential Phases with Gates: Confidence in the plan, changes are tightly controlled
Top-down: decisions are made by leadership and carried out by a team of "doers"
Siloed: Each team member has a specialty or phase they are focused on, with minimal collaboration or insight into larger purpose

Iterative and Incremental: timeboxes are used to ensure frequent feedback, changes are expected
Self-organizing: teams are empowered to determine how best to complete their work
Cross-functional: work comes to the team and the team members decide who does the work

Agile In...

Your Daily Life

Your Workplace

You and your family have just moved into a new house and are looking to repaint. You’ve found a gorgeous green paint that you think would look perfect in the living room. After painting one wall, though, you realize that although you like the color, it’s much brighter than you originally thought.

If you're in a Waterfall mindset, you might paint the entire room and hope for the best. But if you're thinking in an Agile way–trying to get feedback quickly– you might consult with your family after one wall.

They agree that the green would probably be overwhelming on all four walls, and you decide that keeping one green accent wall is the best move.

Your team has been tasked to build an app for a client. The project goes smoothly and fits all of the client's requirements. However, along the way, the clients requests another feature but demands the timeline remain the same.

In Waterfall, a request like this is either just accepted or would have to proceed through rigorous change management. If accepted, the team would be expected to simply work more to get the additional scope completed on time.

In Agile, the team would keep the timeline and instead would inspect and adapt to adjust the scope based on priority and value.

Why Seek Agile Guidance?

Individuals

Teams and Organizations

Develop new skills
Transform your career
Achieve more value, personally and professionally
Reduce daily stress
Limit multitasking and actually deliver

Enhance ability to manage changing priorities
Accelerate solution delivery
Increase team productivity
Improve business and IT alignment
Improve visibility and predictability