What is Agile anyway?
TL;DR: Agile is a mindset. It’s about how you think and act, being open to change, with the customer’s satisfaction a priority. This is “being Agile”. Frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, etc) provide a means on how to “do agile”.
This article is part of a series. Go to the Contents page.
There are many (many…!) articles available covering what Agile is. By all means Google it…
What follows is an introduction to a series of articles. I encourage you to read more articles from various sources on what Agile is, as all cover it in a different way.
Is Agile a Framework? Or Methodology? Or Philosophy?
These questions can be answered succinctly: Agile is not a framework, philosophy, methodology, or anything else.
Let’s consider the meaning of agile, which adds context:
- a dictionary definition of agile is “to be able to move quickly and easily”.
- directly from Latin agilis which means “nimble, quick,”.
- also agere “to set in motion, keep in movement” or “to do”.
- the root being ag- “to drive, draw out or forth, move”.
The Manifesto for Agile Software Development (which we will cover from the next article) provides 4 Values and 12 Principles that illustrate how an organisation or person can be more agile.
And I’ll mention this a few times: when you read software, think solution.
So if Agile is not a framework, methodology or philosophy, then what is Agile?
Agile is a Mindset
Based on the Agile Manifesto’s values and principles, ultimately, Agile is a mindset. It’s a way of thinking. It’s “Being Agile” and not “Doing Agile”.
The values and principles are the basis on how we respond to change and deal with uncertainty.
Then there are frameworks within the umbrella of Agile. Scrum, Kanban, XP, Lean are just some you may have heard of.
So what is “Being Agile”?
We’ll cover the Agile Manifesto in the next article. But for now, the very first sentence is a great summary of Agile:
“We are uncovering better ways of developing [solutions] by doing it and helping others do it.”
To those who know, yes, I’ve changed the word software to solutions. Bear with me. Over this series of articles, we will see how Agile is used for everything from building bridges to developing marketing campaigns.
So Agile is about how you think and act.
Various frameworks exist that support projects are various types. Scrum is the most popular. But others exist, such as Kanban. They are still not as prescriptive as being methodologies. They are frameworks that, with experience, can be adapted.
These frameworks, such as Scrum, is all about “doing Agile”. I can teach you to “do Agile” in a relatively short period of time.
To “be Agile”, you have to embrace the mindset and think Agile in everything you do. This takes individuals, and especially organisations, much longer. It is a significant mindset shift and should not be under-estimated, as it will impact on every part of the organisations, from top to bottom.
Embrace an Agile mindset and “be Agile”.
This is the spirit of these articles, I hope to share how to “Be Agile”.
