When it comes agility, we often find expressions like ‘you have to think agile’. But what exactly means ‘agile way of thinking’?

Thinking agile is means adopting the ‘agile values’ stated on the Agile Manifesto

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

These four apparently simple sentences carry a huge change in the culture and processes used by companies with a traditional project management.

Explaining in a very simple way, these four phrases say that although the items on the right are important and necessary, the items on the left have more value.

Let’s explore this a little bit.

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

It is essential to value people and interactions. We are talking about giving more importance to communication than processes and tools when dealing with our customers, project team and all stakeholders.

We are not denying the fact that processes and tools do not play an important role in the creation of new products, but we become much more productive when we have the freedom to express ourselves and share our ideas and opinions with a group.

Working software over comprehensive documentation

If you work or have worked in a company that uses traditional project management, you will certainly find many documents to be completed during the various phases of the project … planning, reports, test documentation, meeting minutes, etc.

When Agile values more functional software over documentation, this does not mean that you have to eliminate all forms of documents from your project. Just don’t spend more time documenting than creating your product.

Agile tries to simplify the use of documentation, not eliminate it entirely. Documentary bureaucracy is one of the factors that needs to be adapted to the agile thinking.

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

In the traditional model, customers define all the details of the product requirements during the planning phase at the beginning of the project.

In Agile mode, the client participates throughout the project’s lifecycle by providing continuous feedback.

Meeting your client’s needs is the key to the success of your project. It is essential to obtain continuous feedbacks regarding requirements and quality during the entire execution of the project.

Scopes driven by legal contracts create a communication barrier between the client and the project team in creating a relationship.

Investing in creating a good relationship with the client will bring good results for both parties: the client will be satisfied, and the project team will be more productive.

Responding to change over following a plan

                                                          “There are only three things certain in life: death, taxes and changes.” (I don’t know who said that, but I agree 100%)

One of the biggest advantages of the agile method is that it is fully adapted to changes, unlike the traditional model. The main reason for this is that the traditional model treats changes as an additional cost, while the agile model treats it as an evolution of the product.

In practice, we know that the plans developed at the beginning of the project are unlikely to be strictly followed until the end. This is due to the little information available at the beginning of the project.

In addition, the need for adjustments in the scope of the project or in the management of resources practically forces the project manager to constantly adjust the initial plan. All this are time consuming.

In Agile, the most important is to define the requirements and prioritize delivery to add value to the customer as quickly as possible. In a plan-based project, the value is only perceived at the end.

But it’s not all (you thought it would be that easy?)

Agile thinking means that you ALSO UNDERSTAND AND FOLLOW the 12 agile principles expressed in the Agile Manifesto.

Don’t miss my next post where I will go through this subject