Busting the myths around Agile
With the advent of unprecedented digitization, the world today is spiraling into a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment. Organizations are increasingly looking at a way to not just survive but thrive in this fast-paced, ever-changing environment. In this hour of need, several organizations are turning towards Agile. While Agile is the buzzword in the market today, it is a concept that is often misunderstood. Is Agile a methodology? Does it work in a non-software context? And so on.
As the buzz around Agile grows, so do the questions about it. When these questions are not answered adequately, several myths have cropped up around it. These myths can either prevent organizations from adopting an Agile way of working or make them choose it for the wrong reasons. Both scenarios are undesirable because they result in organizations not leveraging the full power of the agile way of working.
In this blog, we bust the three common myths associated with Agile. This would hopefully help organizations make informed decisions and adopt the agile way of working in the right manner.
Myth 1: Agile is a METHODOLOGY
This is possibly the most common misconception about Agile. Organizations and people tend to be confused that agile is a methodology that needs to be adopted and executed. Some people also think of agile as just doing iterations, retrospect meeting, daily standups, etc. So, what is it really then? Agile is a MINDSET — a way of thinking or philosophy. Mindset is one of the most important elements and something that is actually missing in the agile manifesto. Before we go any further, let’s first look at the agile manifesto.
4 values of Agile:
12 Principles of the Agile Manifesto:
As you can see, the Agile Manifesto is all about 4 values and 12 principles. It does not mention anything about methodology. Perhaps, it is the misinterpretation of the manifesto over years that has led people to believe that Agile is simply about implementing a set of rules or practices. However, Agile is more about a set of principles to guide you in the decisions you take. Agile is principle-driven (mindset) and not rules-driven (methodology).
According to Wikipedia, “Agile software development is a set of principles for software development in which requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing and cross-functional teams. Agile itself has never defined any specific methods to achieve this, but many have grown up as a result and have been recognized as being ‘Agile’.” Words like Scrum, Kanban, XP, etc., that you must have often heard of are actually methodologies based on the agile values and principles.
Being agile, on the other hand, is a way of thinking primarily focused on the customer. Therefore, to deliver what the customer demands, in real-time, teams must focus on collaboration, continuous improvement and commitment to quality, focus on people and delivering value, empowerment and self-organization.
In other words, successful agile transformation starts with changing how we think — specifically, in my opinion, how we think about priorities and failure. Priorities become linear and organized instead of reacting based on what is broken. Failure is no longer looked upon as something to be feared; instead, we embrace failure as a learning experience.
