Agile 101: Simplifying Project Management🚀

[#1]

Welcome to the first article in our series on Agile! If you’ve heard about Agile and found yourself puzzled, or if you’re curious why everyone seems to be talking about it, you’re in the right place.

Think of Agile as a super chill way to manage projects and develop products. It’s all about working together with your team, flexibility in approach to work, and making steady progress. If the old-school project management methods have you scratching your head, Agile might just be your new best friend. Let’s break it down!

The Birth of Agile 🛠️

Picture this: it’s 2001, and a group of frustrated software developers in Utah decided it was time for a change. They were fed up with rigid processes that hindered adaptability, delayed feedback until late stages, and often resulted in products that didn’t meet user needs.They gathered together and crafted the Agile Manifesto. It was like their secret recipe for a more adaptive, responsive, and human-centered way of working.

The Nuts and Bolts of Agile🔩

Agile involves slicing a big project into small, manageable pieces called sprints or iterations. Each sprint is a mini-project with its own planning, execution, review, and tweaks. This means you get to deliver cool stuff regularly and make changes based on feedback.

Key Ingredients of Agile:

• Iterative Development: Break projects into chunks and get something valuable from each one.

• Collaboration: Talk, share, and work together—because teamwork makes the dream work.

• Flexibility: Roll with the punches and adjust to new requirements and feedback.

• Customer Focus: Keep the customer in the loop and make sure they’re happy with what they’re getting.

Agile in Action: From Planning to Delivery 📅➡️🎉

Imagine you want a custom cake for a party. Here’s how it works the traditional way vs the Agile way:

Traditional Approach:

1. Requirements Gathering: Talk to customer and note down points of what they want from the cake.
   
   

2. Design Phase: Create detailed blueprints for the cake.      
                                                                                                                                       
   
    

3. Development Phase: You might have missed asking the customer about the color scheme or decoration details so you make those decisions by yourself and proceed to  bake the cake.
   
   

4. Testing Phase: Show the final cake and hope it’s what they wanted.
   
   

5. Delivery Phase: Make last-minute changes and deliver the cake.

This method can be a bit of a gamble if things don’t turn out as planned!

Agile Approach:

1. Sprint Planning: Break down the cake project into mini-tasks. First up, finalize the flavor and bake a sample.
   
   

2. First Sprint:

   • Development: Bake a little sample, maybe a cupcake.

   • Review: The customer says it’s great but a bit less sweet.
     
     

3. Second Sprint:

   • Development: Adjust the recipe and bake a new sample.

   • Review: Sweetness is just right!
     
     

4. Third Sprint:

   • Development: Work on the cake design and show a sketch.

   • Review: The customer loves it but wants a different color.
     
     

5. Fourth Sprint:

   • Development: Adjust the color and make a small decoration sample.

   • Review: Design is perfect!

       

By working in small, manageable steps and getting feedback along the way, the customer ends up with a cake they love without any last-minute surprises.

Why Agile Rocks 🎸

Agile isn’t just cool for its flexibility; it’s also packed with perks:

• Happy Customers: Get what they want, when they want it.

• Quick Delivery: Faster results and quicker updates.

• Happy Teams: Boosts morale with a collaborative and empowered environment.

• Better Risk Management: Spot and fix issues early.

Wrapping It Up

Agile is like having a superpower in project management—making things flexible, fun, and customer-focused. You don’t just end up making what you planned but exactly the thing the customer has asked for. It’s like adjusting your recipe on the fly to make sure you’re serving up something delicious. Stay tuned for more Agile insights in the next article, where we’ll dive into popular Agile frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, and others!

Spoiler: there will be no soggy cakes or project disasters here! 🍰🚀

[Wouter Bruinings]

Thanks for this explainer, introducing people to agile ways of working is always valuable. I’d like to add a few notes: 

1. You can find and read the agile manifesto yourself here: https://agilemanifesto.org , it’s a very short read.
2. Sprints are part of the scrum framework (framework developed by contributors to the manifesto) but are not required to take an agile approach.
3. Agile approaches work well in complex environments with a high amount of uncertainty. Whereas tighter process or project management approaches work better in complicated environments, that require a lot of planning but have little uncertainty.
4. While I consider myself an agile advocate, I generally don’t find it “chill” at all. Humans have a strong tendency to control and structure the world around us and business schools have been teaching hierarchical tayloristic management approaches. That causes friction within teams among individuals who have a higher tendency to analyse and plan and those who don’t. And hierarchical organisational structures are still the norm, “self organising teams” in such an environment are only as self organising as the organisation allows them. 

[Morgan Watts]

@Wouter Bruinings Point 4 is a very solid point. Always interesting to see how "self-organizing" the organization lets a team be. Sometimes external stakeholders have more influence on the process than they should. Convincing the stakeholders to get on-board the agile train and trust the process can be very difficult when the trusty ole' "everything is a high priority" situation arises between different projects. 

[Mahima_miniOrange_SSO]

@Wouter Bruinings @Morgan Watts Thank you for your valuable insights and inputs. I truly appreciate it!