Have you ever thought or heard:
“We spend more time on the project documentation or updating Gantt charts than actually delivering the products."
"We de-scoped things trying to minimise risks, but then what we ended up delivering wasn’t what people needed."
"We couldn’t adapt when the requirements changed. We wasted a lot of time fixing documents no-one reads, instead of working on the solutions everyone will use."
The Creation of Agile
In 2001, a group of experienced developers decided to start a meaningful conversation about new ways of working. It was born out of a collective desire to find a better way to develop software and spend your time at work collaborating to deliver value.
They recognised that despite the promises of traditional project management models, they still often led to wasted time and effort. Paying a lot of people for documents full of effort, duration and schedule estimation, still usually resulted in time delays in a project. Obsessing about defining and controlling scope didn’t actually negate project challenges related to evolving needs, misaligned priorities or new requirements.
The primary goal of the conversation they started was to create a way to manage work that was more flexible, that would focus on people over processes, and prioritised effort into delivering functional products over extensive and exhaustive documentation. They wanted to focus on collaboration, customer feedback, and iterative development as a way to drive continuous improvement and better manage and respond to change.
If your goals are:
to empower your teams to work in more adaptive ways to own and manage how they respond to change.
to prioritise successfully delivering outputs that are valued more than strictly following a plan.
to remain people focused in their approach to: analysis, design, build, testing and deployment activities.
to keep listening, communicating and collaborating through all their project interactions.
to break down silos between project teams, business stakeholders, and customers.
then you are aligned with the original intent of the people who created Agile in the first place.
As the leader of a team, you want to help your teams with practical steps to confidently become Agile, and understand how you will work together to overcome challenges along the way, so that your teams are empowered to own how they will implement agile ways of working to achieve meaningful progress and results.
The Agile Manifesto
The original creators of the Agile Manifesto knew that in order to survive and thrive in a fast-paced world, companies needed to adopt a mindset focused on learning, adaptability, and customer satisfaction. Adopting Agile practices provides a framework for you and your teams to do just that - one based in the realities of digital development work, outside of a project management theory or textbook.
Here is the full text of the Agile Manifesto:
“We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.” - Beck et al, 2001.
It is simple in its intent, and is still often maligned and misunderstood. There are also the twelve principles (Beck et al, 2001) connected to this Manifesto.
How Agile Manifested
Since 2001, many articles (HBR, 2016), organisations (Agile Alliance, 2024), software tools (Gartner, n.d.) and certification pathways (Scrum.org, 2017) have since grown out from the ideas captured above.
Today when some people hear the word ‘Agile’ they are quick to dismiss it as a 'buzzword' or a 'project management fad.' While a past experience may offer some people a valid basis for scepticism, the response could just be a defence mechanism from people who want to let you know they are wise and clever cynics, wanting to plant a flag, holding out hope for a future 'I told you so' moment. They are also potentially just nervous about what might change, and be wanting to keep things mostly the way they are done now. Becoming Agile is about uncovering better ways to do things. By maintaining traditional project approaches there will definitely still be plenty of ‘words’, lacking the stigma of anything resembling a ‘buzz’.
Becoming Agile is simply aiming to try some new better ways of working that to help the team focus on helping humans. It will not mean you will ignore all processes, requirements, plans or agreements. It means you recognise that the real value lies in people, collaboration, and delivering a product that works.
The Agile Mitigation
It is important that this sort of commentary and concerns around Agile ways of working be filtered through the lens of what the Agile Manifesto actually says. Becoming Agile is as much about how will be use Agile approaches as you implement it in your team.
Becoming Agile is calling for flexibility in how you approach things, including how you plan to implement the changes. You are becoming Agile because you place higher importance on the ability to adapt than on focusing on rigid tools, processes or documentation - this includes Agile ones too. This means not being completely dismissive, as it is genuinely important to examine any concerns and healthy cynicism collaboratively throughout this change process and moving forward with an agile, growth mindset.
You certainly could continue spending your days meticulously documenting requirements, drafting detailed project management plans, securing approvals, and making bold promises about timelines years in advance—only to discover after it is too late that what your delivering is missing the mark. Maybe as you get close to delivering something, you will be told that your bosses have already moved on to a new 'innovative' project that will solve the same problem you are trying to fix. Your project wasn’t there idea, was taking too long and they needed to be seen as a ‘mover and shaker’ who can get some 'quick wins' ahead of their next promotion.
The Agile Motivation
What have you got to lose by trying to do things better by becoming Agile?
Imagine working in a team that is thriving—where productivity is high, morale is strong, and people are genuinely excited about the potential and possibilities in their daily work. That kind of environment isn’t a distant dream; it’s within your control to create by becoming Agile.
You want to do this because you want to make things better for people. You want to work in a team that fosters collaboration, enhances transparency, that wants everyone to be engaged and on the same page. By breaking work into manageable chunks, your team is focused on what’s important now, while staying flexible enough to change direction if needed.
With Agile, you get feedback as you go, adjust along the way, and actively work to avoid uncertainty and unpleasant surprises at the end. Your team will deliver value faster by engaging with and responding to feedback more easily. You will get better at managing the risks that your project will waste lots of time and effort on the wrong things.
Becoming Agile will help you guide your team toward success: empowering them to adapt and giving them meaning, satisfaction and confidence in what they are working on every day. You need ways of working that enable what you are doing to remain valued and relevant. You need to be able to manage work in ways that allow your people to pivot, respond, collaborate and iterate with resilience. This is why you need to focus on becoming Agile.
References:
Agile Alliance. (2024). Agile Alliance. https://www.agilealliance.org/
Beck, K., et al. (2001). Manifesto for Agile Software Development. Agile Alliance. https://agilemanifesto.org/
Gartner. (n.d.). Enterprise Agile Planning Tools Reviews and Ratings. https://www.gartner.com/reviews/market/enterprise-agile-planning-tools
Rigby, D. K., Sutherland, J., & Takeuchi, H. (2016). Embracing Agile. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/05/embracing-agile
Schwaber, K., & Sutherland, J. (2017). The Scrum Guide. https://www.scrum.org/
I would read this book! Love the structure - Manifestation, Mitigation and Motivation.