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Probably the single most buzzworthy project management term, Agile is based on the mindset that self-organizing software development teams can deliver value through iteration and collaboration. It was formally developed in 2001 based on the Agile Manifesto of Software Development and is based on a core set of values:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

• Working software over comprehensive documentation

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

• Responding to change over following a plan

There’s a lot of confusion out there about what “Agile” means, and that might be due to the fact that there are several ways to execute the methodology. Many teams claim they are agile, but they don’t use the methodology by the book. That’s OK, but that’s not Agile with a capital “A.” That’s just working faster. So what is Agile then? It can be boiled down to these main points:

• The product owner sets the project objectives, but the final deliverable can change. (For example, a goal can manifest itself in many ways, and you’ll explore them together.)

• The product team works in two-week sprints, which are iterative in nature. At the end of each sprint, the collective team reviews the work done and decides what is complete and what needs iteration.

• Depending on sprint reviews, the final product might be altered to meet the product owner’s goals or business needs, and that’s OK! (No scope creep here.)

• Everyone collaborates! That’s right—open conversations about what works best for the product make for a better final deliverable, and those comments don’t just come from developers—they come from the whole team (see Figure 2.2).

NOTE THE AGILE MANIFESTO

Written in 2001 by 17 software developers, the Agile Manifesto puts forth core values and 12 principles for “uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.” Read the full Manifesto online: http://agilemanifesto.org/.

FIGURE 2.2

Plan, iterate, review, iterate, iterate, iterate . . . review, iterate, deliver, and iterate again. That’s the cycle of Agile!

Now that you understand the core of what “Agile” means, you can understand the “flavors” of it:

• Scrum: The simplest of Agile methods, because it allows teams to get work done without added complexity that some methodologies introduce. Essentially, the team self-organizes around central roles that suit them: Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Engineering/Development Team. The Scrum Master’s role (kind of like the project manager) is to remove any blockers from the team’s way in order to get the work in two-week cycles, or “sprints,” to get work done quickly. Scrum calls for “ceremonies” (meetings for the uninitiated) to keep things on track:

• Daily stand-ups: A short (15 minutes max) meeting held each day to discuss progress, what’s next, and what blockers exist. You stand during this meeting in order to keep it short, because who wants to stand for that long?

• Sprint planning: A creatively named meeting that is a bit longer (an hour max) and comes with the objective plan of what will be done within the sprint.

• Sprint review: A meeting to review all work done at the end of a sprint. In this meeting, you might collect feedback, decide something is done, or decide on an alternate route.

• Sprint retrospective: A meeting held after the sprint review for up to an hour to discuss what might make future sprints more productive.

• Kanban: The literal translation of this Japanese word is “sign-board” or “billboard.” A visual approach to scheduling that aids decision-making concerning what to produce, when to produce it, and how much to produce. It was created for lean manufacturing by an industrial engineer at Toyota. If you’ve used a tool like Trello, you’ve used a Kanban board to move tasks through stages to completion on a project (see Figure 2.3).

FIGURE 2.3 Place cards on your Kanban board to track progress. Want an example of a tool that will help with this? Check out Trello, JIRA, or Pivotal Tracker.

• Extreme Programming (XP): It’s not a part of the X Games, but you might find yourself drinking Mountain Dew while administering this Agile approach intended to improve quality by responding quickly to change. In essence, change can happen within sprints, and teams can change the course of their work being done/planned immediately.

• Adaptive Project Framework (APF): This one may resonate for PMs who recognize that you have to adapt your methodology to the project’s goals. With APF, you document project requirements, functions, subfunctions, and features before determining project goals. The team then operates in iterative stages rather than sprints, but stakeholders can change the project scope at the start of each stage. So, truly, you adapt to the project and its people.