According to PMI’s “Pulse of the profession” 2015 report, it says that enterprises across the globe are losing ~USD 109 million dollars for every billion dollars spent on projects and programs. And Agile project management has made its foray into enterprises around the world as one of the most robust projects management methodologies. But in hindsight of a project, after months of initial development and delivery, there are many cases where the projects did not even align with the Agile Manifesto which is the first step of the Agile concept.
Agile provides 4 key value statements in its manifesto where there are 12 principles which offer help to the project practitioner. All 12 principles in Agile Manifesto cover everything from prioritizing customer satisfaction to how the team can be more effective at regular intervals while working on the project. Agile simply covers everything that needs to be covered as a project management methodology, it even fixes the gaps that are there in other methodologies and hence has found widespread acceptance from enterprises across the globe.
Below mentioned are Agile’s 12 principles and why it needs to be incorporated into an organization:
1. Our Highest Priority is to Satisfy the Customer Through Early and Continuous Delivery of Valuable Software:
In Agile’s first principle, the emphasis is more on customer satisfaction, note that the ‘early’ word is incorporated in the principle to ensure there is a quick ROI for the customer and the ‘continuous’ part represents the short iterations in a project which helps the Agile team to build new features when the customer asks for additional value in a project.
2. Welcome Changing Requirements, Even Late in Development. Agile Processes Harness Change for the Customer’s Competitive Advantage:
In Agile, the requirements of a project are reflected in a backlog (Product and Sprint). The backlog forms the crux of an Agile project methodology and forms a crucial foundation for the work that needs to be done by the Agile team. The word ‘welcoming changing requirements’ allows prioritization and reprioritization in a sprint through a Sprint Backlog. With Agile prescribing a high level of transparency, it allows the Agile teams to change the requirements to reflect the ROI and provide the customers ‘competitive advantage’ without resistance from the team as seen in a waterfall method.
3. Deliver Working Software Frequently, From a Couple of Weeks to a Couple of Months, with a Preference for the Shorter Timescale:
For a product, the only way to gain a return on investment is when you confirm the results of what the project has achieved. Hence, the word ‘frequently’ is tied to getting the most out of continuous delivery. And this is one of the major reasons for shorter timescales as that would provide more iteration/sprints which results in feedback loops from both customer and business. Shorter timescales also result in minimizing risks to acceptable levels and help the customer to remain competitive in the market with their product.
4. Business People and Developers Must Work Together Daily Throughout the Project:
‘Work together daily’ means that Agile teams are cross-functional teams where both developers, testers, scrum masters, and project owners all work together to achieve a working product at the earliest. Working together in the Agile team also refers to face-to-face communications and is not just limited to emails and texting. If there are gaps that are left open during daily interactions then there is room for inconsistency and it is possible that key team members fall out of the loop. ‘Throughout the project’ phrase in an Agile scenario means that team members are part of more than one or more projects and offer little presence throughout the project. This in turn leaves gaps in expectations and stalls the progress of the project.
5. Build Projects Around Motivated Individuals. Give them the Environment and Support they Need, and Trust Them to Get the Job Done:
Motivation is a key factor in any team environment to push hard to achieve the end objective. And when the project is ongoing, one needs to ensure nobody gets in the Agile team’s way to achieve the goal of the project. An element of trust needs to be built to ensure the team performs to its best. When you provide a team with the right environment and support them with a scrum master who will protect the team from distractions and remove obstacles from their path to stay on course with the project lifecycle.
6. The Most Efficient and Effective Method of Conveying Information to and Within a Development Team is the Face-to-Face Conversation:
A face-to-face conversation is one the most effective and efficient ways of conveying information to team members and other important stakeholders. It is said that our body language makes up about 55% of communication, 7% verbal, and 38% the tone of voice. Just imagine a plain e-mail in the same context the message is just a message and it can be interpreted as the readers choose to and some of the simple messages via email and texting can be interpreted to be malicious whereas it was just a simple benign message. One of the best advantages of face-to-face communication during meetings and stand-up is that, not only the person to whom the communication is intended to will be able to comprehend but also other team members in the background can as well gain important information which helps everybody in the team to stay on the same page.
7. Working Software is the Primary Measure of Progress:
Agile demands robust metrics to measure the progress of the project. In this case, it has to be a working product at any cost. In waterfall methodology, one measures the progress as an overall percentage. But, in Agile working software/product is the only measurement entity to consider progress, as a product that does not work, does not offer any ROI. It is like accepting something that is half-baked, neither you can eat it nor fix it. This is the difference between Agile and Waterfall, to add to this principle, why even consider something that does not even work or complete in any manner?
8. Agile Processes Promote Sustainable Development. The Sponsors, Developers, And Users Should be Able to Maintain a Constant Pace Indefinitely:
This Agile principle is all about understanding the human aspect of Agile teamwork. Sustainable development is when there is work-life balance for team members which helps to maintain a constant pace of work by avoiding burnout. It is seen that many enterprises are afraid of telling customers how long their developers work on the project. Few enterprises see developers working for long hours during weekdays and weekends as a competitive advantage. It may seem an advantageous prospect in the short run, but it is not sustainable for a long period of time and will cause burnout and team members may get sick or even leave.
9. Continuous Attention to Technical Excellence and Good Design Enhances Agility:
Enterprises are time and again tempted to develop code just once and see if it matches the clients’ requirements. This principle ensures you always look into best practices at every step of your project. Even when the project is at the completion stage, you can always find ways to improve the software/product, and this iterative approach is what helps automation in Agile. It always takes up the end user’s perspective as to how the original code is adding value to them. As poor coding will cause higher costs and time wasted all along the project life cycle.
10. Simplicity (The Art of Maximizing the Amount of Work Not Done) is Essential:
Prioritizing the development of certain features in a software/product can be a difficult skill to acquire. During the development stages, we at times get intimidated by seeing how many features the end product will have. The principle also focuses on the “amount of work not done” which promotes work smarter than a harder concepts. Being able to prioritize things is needed to achieve simplicity. Many customers believe that more number of features in the product will deliver more value. But, what is the use of so many features if it is not used by the end-user once the product is released to the market?
11. The Best Architectures, Requirements, and Designs Emerge from Self-Organizing Teams:
The word “self-organizing” in this Agile principle demonstrates the idea of a team that needs to be highly motivated to ensure they can give their best and has the buy-in from the senior management. When the initial designs, architectures, and requirements come from a team that is closest to the product, the result will always be good from this approach rather than from an external team or a top-down approach. Also, the team dynamics serve better during the project lifecycle, as there will be ownership and pride in their project.
12. At Regular Intervals, the Team Reflects on How to Become More Effective, then Tunes and Adjusts its Behavior Accordingly:
Agile is all about continuous improvement throughout the project lifecycle. And this principle is all about improving the product at regular intervals. The word “regular intervals” in the principle also states the iterative aspect of being effective not just once but over a period of time. It also prescribes the use of Agile retrospective events to showcase where are how things can be improved from the previous sprint. In the waterfall method, this improvement aspect is used only once in the entire project lifecycle and mostly at the very end of the project. It is like the project is almost complete and now you are about to incorporate a major change that will push the deadline and budget of the project. Agile simply fine tunes the processes at various junctures and this is more effective as problems can be addressed throughout various sprints which allows the adjustments made to be implemented and tested all along.
As you have seen from the above-mentioned points, Agile caters to every aspect of the project in the right manner and it is for this reason that enterprises have incorporated this globally-recognized project management methodology for their business-critical projects that drives better ROI and value.
