If you look up "agile" in a thesaurus you will see terms like: nimble, spry, zippy, and quick. However, in today's business, agile is used to describe a way of executing a project where you prioritize the highest value items of the project and work on them first. To enable this, the cross functional team works closely with a lead (product owner) from the business team, valuing the communication and relationship over a formal requirements document.
This type of project management has become increasingly popular over the past several years and "agile" has become a buzz word heard throughout companies everywhere. Originally built for software development, agile practices are being leveraged for every facet of IT and other areas inside companies. We could spend hours debating the value of agile or waterfall project management, but for the sake of this blog, we will summarize that both are valuable and have their places.
The issue has become that while agile is becoming a common term and the victories of agile processes are becoming more and more available and broadcast, management looks to implement these processes into their organizations. This sounds like a great win for the agile community and like a solid direction, but all too frequently management is taking their definition from the thesaurus and are looking to agile to complete their project faster. The reality is that agile uses iterative development and breaks work down into smaller chunks that allow the high value items to be delivered first.
This type of project management has become increasingly popular over the past several years and "agile" has become a buzz word heard throughout companies everywhere. Originally built for software development, agile practices are being leveraged for every facet of IT and other areas inside companies. We could spend hours debating the value of agile or waterfall project management, but for the sake of this blog, we will summarize that both are valuable and have their places.
The issue has become that while agile is becoming a common term and the victories of agile processes are becoming more and more available and broadcast, management looks to implement these processes into their organizations. This sounds like a great win for the agile community and like a solid direction, but all too frequently management is taking their definition from the thesaurus and are looking to agile to complete their project faster. The reality is that agile uses iterative development and breaks work down into smaller chunks that allow the high value items to be delivered first.
Done correctly (we will define this in a future article) agile will result in high value being delivered first and then lower value being delivered later in the project. Agile will also provide the ability to quickly adjust to the changing business needs and values by allowing the scope to shift from iteration to iteration. But to truly be faster, it is the lean processes that you implement not agile on its own. These processes are frequently overlooked by management who instead focuses on this mystical all saving agile to fix their problems. While I personally believe agile offers a lot of benefits a greater benefit would be had by leaning out their existing processes before they move to agile.
At the end of the day, agile is another way to organize and execute on the work. While agile delivers high value items first and faster, the entirety of the project will typically last as long if not longer (depending on requirement changes) as a waterfall project. To make your process faster, you have to start by evaluating your processes and working on improving them. After you find a way to make the individual work units move faster then you should focus on how you organize your work.
At the end of the day, agile is another way to organize and execute on the work. While agile delivers high value items first and faster, the entirety of the project will typically last as long if not longer (depending on requirement changes) as a waterfall project. To make your process faster, you have to start by evaluating your processes and working on improving them. After you find a way to make the individual work units move faster then you should focus on how you organize your work.
