12 Agile Principles to Motivate Your Team and Delight Your Customers
At Easy Agile, we embrace agile principles (of course), and we strive to help software development teams put agile methodologies into practice. However, with so much to get done each day, it's easy to lose sight of the core principles of the agile manifesto.
You're probably thinking that you read the agile principles before and now put them into practice...all day, every day. Why do we need to revisit them?
You don't need to memorize the principles. They're much more of a guiding light than a rote process. But lining up the agile principles against your everyday agile practices provides reinforcement that you're putting them into action. This also helps you identify areas for improvement. 🙌
The continued relevance of the agile manifesto's principles
The agile manifesto focuses on:
- Continuous improvement by responding to feedback and change
- Allowing software developers and cross-functional teams to organize in a way that embraces collaboration and interaction
- Involving customers in the development process and responding to their feedback
The manifesto outlines 12 agile principles which are the bread and butter of agile software development. We'd like to provide practical context to these agile principles, so we're going to organize them into three categories — building working software by being organized, helping teams collaborate, and tactics for keeping customers happy.
Getting organized so you can build working software
The first few agile principles we'll review revolve around the concept of working software — a product your customers can use as early in the software development process as possible. You’ll adapt it as you get feedback about what’s working well and what could be improved. This is in contrast to a waterfall methodology to development, which is a more linear approach that typically does not allow for iterative updates.
Creating working software you can continuously update is one goal. But, that's easier said than done without the help of purpose-built tools like Jira, whose goal is to help agile teams manage their chosen agile framework, whether it be Kanban or Scrum. (You can read our guide on the differences between Kanban and Scrum...or how to use them together. 💪)
Now, let’s look at which of the 12 agile principles fall into this category — #3, #7, and #8 — and how Jira helps implement a framework that adheres to them.
Agile principle #3
"Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale."
Atlassian (the makers of Jira) sums up the embodiment of this principle perfectly in its definition of a sprint: "A sprint is a short, time-boxed period when a Scrum team works to complete a set amount of work."
While agile sprints run over a short period of time, running them smoothly takes a lot of work for product owners and software developers. Luckily, Jira provides ways to streamline that work — check out our guide on automating parts of your sprint.
Agile principle #7
"Working software is the primary measure of progress."
Sprints can help you ensure that your team delivers working software incrementally. If planned well enough, a sprint can serve as a stopping point for the release of your next batch of features and functionality to your end-users.
Agile principle #8
"Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely."
Agile frameworks like Scrum can help measure if a team is maintaining a consistent pace. Within sprints, effort can be measured in different ways like agile story points. As sprints are completed, Jira automatically creates a visual report of how many story points a team is completing from sprint to sprint in its velocity chart.
Time for team collaboration
You're an agile team delivering working software and using a super-tool like Jira to plan your work and track your progress. But you need a human touch to truly follow agile values. Please welcome agile principles #4, #6, #11, #5, and #12 to the stage.
Agile principle #4
"Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project."
Daily stand up meetings are a manifestation of this principle. In this meeting, each team member addressed three topics: (1) what they worked on yesterday; (2) what they're working on today; and (3) what is preventing them from making progress today.
Agile principle #6
"The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation."
Whether it's in an in-person or remote meeting, conveying information is tricky — but (phew) we've already addressed that with practices like daily sprints and velocity charts to exchange information across team members and to visually review team progress. And you'll soon see other ways that agile software development teams organize and communicate with each other.
Agile principle #11
"The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams."
Well, first, what exactly is a self-organizing team? It does not need outside direction or micromanagement to figure out what to work on and how that work gets defined and prioritized. These teams figure out how to plan their work, iterate to deliver that work, and then collaborate on how to continually improve. The agile ceremonies of Scrum — stand up, sprint planning, sprint review, and retrospective — are a working example of this.
Agile principle #5
"Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done."
Ok, so we went out of order on this principle — but for good reason. Following principle #11 makes sense because good self-organized teams are inherently motivated. They work together to figure out how to get the job done and to help each other when someone is stuck. That said, it's important to have defined roles in an agile team, like a Scrum master who can motivate and give feedback to team members.
Agile principle #12
"At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly."
This principle perfectly describes a retrospective — a team meeting to reflect on your most recent sprint or iteration of work and to discuss how to improve for the next one. By answering these questions: (1) What went well?; (2) What could have gone better?; and (3) What can we adjust to improve for next time? your team is collaborating and interacting in an effort to become more effective.
Achieving customer satisfaction
Last, but certainly not least, in the agile principles are customer needs. Who is your customer? What are their needs? How do you respond to their feedback to make sure you provide a working product that they love? Enter principles #1, #2, #9, and #10.
Agile principle #1
"Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software."
It turns out that to satisfy your customer, you need to understand who your customer is. 😉 This takes work. A proven methodology for figuring out who your customers are is to create customer personas. These are fictionalized profiles of your customers that document things like their behavioral patterns, their shared pain points, and what their general demographic information looks like.
Agile principle #2
"Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage."
Requirements can't be effectively changed unless they are defined and made visible to stakeholders for feedback. Even if that feedback causes change late in a development cycle, that's ok! (You'll probably also receive change-inducing feedback on the working software you've already delivered. 😎) Tools like a product roadmap or a user story map that provide visual views of your product backlog help give your customers and stakeholders a platform to have the ability to provide feedback.
Agile principle #9
"Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility."
One word: retrospective.
Ok, two more words: sprint review.
In the context of principle #9, the retrospective and sprint review are two agile ceremonies to use to continually adjust your software's quality and design to best meet your customers’ needs.
Agile principle #10
"Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential."
Imagine you had views of your customer profiles (personas), a visual mapping of their journey through your product (user story map), and a prioritized view of your plan to deliver your product (roadmap). What a time to be alive! If you're doing all three, chances are your team has pretty great insights into whether or not you're getting the right work done. 💪
Putting the 12 agile principles into action
Now you understand how the agile principles have been formed into agile frameworks and how tools like Jira can help agile teams run with those frameworks. We've also mentioned three effective ways to put these principles into action, and our products make it easy to do.
- Easy Agile TeamRhythm supports agile teams from planning through to review with features that support user story mapping, backlog refinement, sprint and version planning, and team retrospectives.
- Easy Agile Personas for Jira provides teams with a customer-centric approach to backlog refinement.
- Easy Agile Roadmaps for Jira gives visual insights for teams and stakeholders around the vision and plan for a product.
- Easy Agile Programs is a complete PI Planning solution that makes scaled cross-team planning and execution easy.
Check out all of our agile solutions in Atlassian's marketplace!
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WorkflowAgile 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Agile Methodology
We’re here to talk about agile, and we don’t mean your abilities on a sports field or in a yoga studio. If you’re new to agile as a methodology, there’s a lot to learn, but the basics are simple. Agile 101 begins with understanding that agile can be applied to anything. You can use agile practices to improve your personal task management, optimize workplace efficiency, or align software teams around product development.
No matter the application, the concepts remain the same: Agile creates a continuous improvement mindset that values flexibility, adaptability, collaboration, and efficiency.
In this post, we’ll cover agile 101 basics, the benefits of agile, popular agile methodologies, and common mistakes to avoid.
Agile 101: How it compares to traditional project management
The concept of Agile has evolved, but it really took off and became popularized in software development. In recent years, the methods and guiding principles of Agile have expanded into a variety of industries that want to emphasize continuous improvement and growth.
How does agile compare to traditional project management? In short: It doesn’t. Agile is just the opposite. One of our favorite ways to compare the agile approach to classical project management is to think of them as jazz vs. classical music.
In classical music, a conductor brings a previously composed and organized piece of music to an orchestra. Then, they dictate what happens and when. This is very much the same as traditional project management, where the project manager brings a plan they have conceived on their own to their team and then proceeds to tell the team how to carry it out. The project manager lays out the steps and expects the team to follow them to the letter (or note). 🎼
Jazz, on the other hand, is collaborative. Each band member feeds off of the other, creating music in a flexible and iterative process — just like the agile process. The band, like an agile team, experiments together and freely creates music in the moment. Each iteration is a little bit different, and hopefully better, than the one that preceded it. 🎷
Project management doesn’t allow for this kind of flexibility. It relies on following a strict sequential order. Each project element must be completed before moving on to the next. Just like a waterfall, the flow of work remains the same from project to project.
Agile is non-linear. It focuses on flexibility, collaboration between team members, and delivering consistent value to stakeholders. With each iteration comes new, actionable insights into what’s working, what isn’t, and what needs to change. It’s a multidimensional way of working that removes the bottlenecks inherent in traditional project management.
Agile 101: The benefits of agile
There are many benefits to agile practices for software development projects, as well as many other industries. The general concepts of agile can be applied to all sorts of situations, and its versatility means it will evolve with the needs of your team.
Think of it as a methodology you can apply to any of your business processes for increased collaboration, optimized efficiency, and continuous improvement.
Agile helps teams and businesses:
- Work at optimal efficiency by eliminating waste
- Make more effective decisions
- Adjust as new information comes in or is discovered
- Continually meet stakeholder deliverable deadlines
- Focus on adding value for stakeholders and customers
- Understand the customer journey
- Build superior products
- Understand capacity to ensure no one over or under commits to work
- Identify roadblocks before they occur
- Spot bottlenecks that could delay work
- Collaborate and work better together
- Adapt with technological, economic, and cultural changes
- Prepare for the unexpected
- Establish processes tailored to your needs
- Improve morale and happiness
- Develop a continuous improvement mindset
Agile 101: Popular methodologies
Now that you have a better understanding of agile 101 basics and the benefits of agile, let’s discuss some of the most popular agile methodologies.
Scrum
Scrum is extremely popular in agile software development. It’s a fairly complicated process for those who are unfamiliar with it, but the basics revolve around recurring sprints that each focus on completing a set amount of work.
A Scrum is one sprint lasting 2-4 weeks. At the beginning of the sprint, the product owner decides which task will move from the main list (product backlog) to the sprint to-do list (sprint backlog). The development team, led by a Scrum Master who understands the Scrum process, works to complete the sprint backlog in the allocated time.
The Scrum team meets for daily Scrums or stand-ups that ensure everyone is on the page about possible roadblocks and what work is to be completed next. This process repeats until a product is complete or stakeholders are fully satisfied. At the end of the sprint, a retrospective is held to help the team understand what went well and what they can improve upon.
Kanban
Kanban is a fairly simple agile process that is often partially utilized within other agile methods, such as Scrum. It’s a task management tool designed to optimize efficiency by visualizing all of the required work and limiting works in progress. A Kanban workflow visually organizes tasks on Kanban boards so that work items can move forward smoothly, even as changes and adjustments are made along the way.
In its simplest form, a Kanban board is three columns (To-Do, Doing, and Done) that allow work to freely flow from one phase to the next. Trello is an example of an online Kanban board.
Kanban boards should be placed in an area of the office that’s visible to the entire team. For virtual teams, this may look like an online resource that everyone can access. This helps everyone from the top down get on the same page about action items. If anyone is wondering what’s the most important task of the day, they simply need to check the Kanban board.
Lean
Lean, along with the five lean principles, originally created by Toyota, is a guiding mindset that helps teams work more productively, efficiently, and effectively. It can be applied to various agile and software development methodologies.
Lean software development is all about improving efficiency by eliminating waste, such as reducing tasks and activities that don’t add value. It provides a clear way to scale agile practices across large or growing organizations.
Extreme programming
Extreme programming (XP) is an agile approach centered around improving software quality and responsiveness while evolving with customer requirements. The ultimate goal of extreme programming is producing high-quality results throughout every aspect of the work, not just the final product.
XP decision-making is based on five values: communication, simplicity, feedback, courage, and respect. XP’s specifics won’t apply to all situations, but the general framework can provide value to any team.
Agile 101: Best practices and mistakes to avoid
To get you started, here are our list of best practices and common agile mistakes.
Basic agile 101 best practices:
✅ See failures as a learning opportunity.
✅ Embrace change and improve your adaptability skills.
✅ Improve efficiency by eliminating tasks and activities that don’t provide value.
✅ Continually improve upon your processes.
✅ Allow plans to live, breathe, and adapt.
✅ Use retrospectives to listen, learn, and improve.
✅ Prioritize the customer journey, and make decisions based on customer needs.
✅ Utilize agile tools and resources.
Common agile mistakes:
❌ Not adapting as new information is revealed or obtained.
❌ Not being on the same page as stakeholders.
❌ Not trusting the team to ideate and develop without supervision.
❌ Sitting down for sprint planning without enough information.
❌ Not incorporating retrospective insights in the following planning session.
❌ Skipping a retrospective due to lack of time or resources.
❌ Too much testing, or not knowing when the project is actually “done.”
❌ Choosing tools that don’t take a customer-centric approach.
Agile made easy
Whether you apply agile principles to an agile task management system like a personal Kanban board or use agile to develop working software, the essence is the same. In basic terms, agile is about continuous improvement. It’s a methodology, mindset, and way of viewing the world. Agile is flexible, adaptive, collaborative, and value-driven.
Easy Agile helps teams work better with agile. We design agile apps for Jira with simple, collaborative, and flexible functionality. From team agility with Easy Agile TeamRhythm, to scaled agility with Easy Agile Programs, our apps can help your agile teams work better together, and deliver for your customers.
Book a 1:1 demo to learn more about our suite of Jira tools, or contact our team if you have additional questions. We offer a free, 30-day trial, so you can try out our products before making a commitment.
Agile Best PracticeAgile Ceremonies: Your Ultimate Guide To the Four Stages
This guide looks at the four ceremonies that bring one of Agile’s most popular frameworks, Scrum, to life.
Learn how each agile ritual helps empower teams and drive performance while highlighting some tips to help your organization get the most from your ceremonies.
At a glance:
- The four agile ceremonies are Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-Up, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective
- Ceremonies in agile facilitate visibility, transparency, and collaboration.
- Each ceremony has a clear structure and objective.
- Clear communication, flexibility, and cultural alignment are the keys to successful ceremonies.
What are the main agile ceremonies?
Agile ceremonies refer to the four events that occur during a Scrum sprint. Other forms of agile development, such as Kanban and Lean, also have similar practices.
The agile ceremonies list includes:
- Sprint Planning
- Daily Stand-Up
- Sprint Review
- Sprint Retrospective
While each ceremony is different, they facilitate the same overall purpose. The ceremonies bring teams together with a common goal under a regular rhythm, and they help teams get things done.
"With today's enterprises under increased pressure to respond quickly to the needs of their customers and stakeholders, they must bring new products to market faster and accelerate improvements to existing solutions and services." - State of Agile Report
Why are agile ceremonies important?
Agile ceremonies help organizations adapt to change and succeed. With work planned in smaller portions and over shorter timeframes, they help teams quickly shift direction and course-correct when needed. They form a key part of the broader agile approach that’s now widely adopted in organizations worldwide.
With agile ceremonies, teams in your organization can benefit from:
- Enhanced ability to manage changing priorities
- Acceleration of software development
- Increase in team productivity
- Improved business and IT alignment
It’s important to remember that while ceremonies are an essential part of Scrum, they’re just one of many rituals that help create agile teams and workplaces. To realize the true benefits of agile, you’ll need to do more than include one or more of the ceremonies into your waterfall project.
1. Sprint Planning
The Sprint Planning ceremony sets teams up for success by ensuring everyone understands the sprint goals and how to achieve them.
- Structure - The Product Owner brings the product backlog to discuss with the Development Team. The Scrum Master facilitates. Together, the Scrum Team does effort or story point estimations. The product backlog must contain all the details necessary for estimation. The Product Owner should be able to clarify any doubts regarding the product backlog.
- Attendees - The entire Scrum Team (the Development Team, Scrum Master, and Product Owner).
- Timing - At the beginning of each sprint.
- Duration - One to two hours per week of iteration. So, if you're planning a two-week sprint, your Sprint Planning should last two to four hours.
- Agile Framework - Scrum. Although Kanban teams also plan, they do it less formally and per milestone, not iteration.
Outcomes
After some team negotiation and discussion, you should have a clear decision on the work that the Development Team can complete during the sprint by the end of Sprint Planning. This is known as the sprint goal.
The sprint goal is an increment of complete work, and everyone should feel confident about the commitment.
The product backlog defines priorities that affect the order of work. Then, the Scrum Master transforms that decision into the sprint backlog.
Top tips
- Focus on collaboration rather than competition.
- Break user stories into tasks to get things more operational for the Development Team. If there's time, assign those tasks during the event.
- Factor in public holidays and any team member’s time off or vacations.
- Keep your team’s pace in mind – a track record of the time it took to implement similar user stories would be helpful.
- Focus on the product backlog and nothing else in terms of work for the sprint.
2. Daily Stand-Up
The daily stand-up brings the team together and sets everyone up for the day. The team uses this time to identify blockers and share plans for the day.
- Structure - This is an informal, standing meeting. All members of the Development Team inform everyone about what they did the day before and what they’re doing today. Members discuss any blockages they have and ask for help from the team if required. Due to time restrictions, the updates should be brief.
- Attendees - Development Team, Scrum Master, Product Owner (optional).
- Timing - Daily, usually in the morning.
- Duration - Short and sharp. No longer than 15 minutes.
- Agile framework - Scrum and Kanban.
Outcomes
The Scrum Master should clear all the blockages that slow down or prevent the Development Team from delivering. As a result, the development process might need to change.
This daily pulse check keeps the team in sync and helps build trust. Together, the group finds ways to support and help each other.
Top tips
- Use a timer to keep this meeting to 15 minutes.
- Hold your stand-up at the same time every day.
- Only discuss the work for the day ahead.
- If the team is distributed, use video conferencing with cameras on.
- Long discussions should happen after the event.
- As the stand-up encourages progress, everyone should provide an update, and everyone should feel accountable.
3. Sprint Review
The Sprint Review is the time to showcase the team’s completed work and gather feedback from stakeholders. A variety of attendees from outside the team offer valuable insights from different viewpoints. This event also helps build trust with both external and internal stakeholders.
- Structure - The Scrum Master takes on the logistics of event preparation. The Product Owner should ask stakeholders questions to gather as much feedback as possible. They should also answer any of their stakeholder’s questions.
- Attendees - Development Team, Scrum Master, Product Owner. Optionally, management, customers, developers, and other stakeholders.
- Timing - At the end of the sprint.
- Duration - In a one-week sprint, the Sprint Review lasts one hour.
- Agile framework - Scrum and Kanban. Kanban teams do these reviews after the team milestones, not sprints.
Outcomes
After this ceremony, the Product Owner might need to adjust or add to the product backlog. They might also release product functionality if it's already complete.
Top tips
- Schedule in time to rehearse before the meeting to help your team present with confidence, especially if external stakeholders are coming along.
- Don’t showcase incomplete work. Review your Sprint Planning and the original criteria if you’re not sure whether the work is complete.
- Besides product functionality, focus on user experience, customer value, and the delivered business value.
- Consider ways you can introduce a celebratory feel to acknowledge the team’s effort.
4. Sprint Retrospective
In this final scrum ceremony in the sequence, you look back on the work you’ve just done and identify ways to do things better next time. The Sprint Retrospective is a tool for risk mitigation in future sprints.
- Structure - The teams discuss what went well throughout the sprint and what went wrong. The Scrum Master should encourage the Development Team to speak up and share not only facts but also their feelings. The goal is to gather rapid feedback for continuous improvement in terms of process. It’s also an opportunity to emphasize good practices that the team adopted and should repeat.
- Attendees - Development Team, Scrum Master, Product Owner (optional).
- Timing - At the end of the sprint.
- Duration - 45 minutes per sprint week.
- Agile framework - Scrum and Kanban (occasionally).
Outcomes
After this session, the team should clearly understand the problems and the wins that happened throughout the iteration. Together, the group comes up with solutions and an action plan to prevent and identify process problems in the next sprint.
Top tips
- Focus on both facts and feelings
- Gather information that helps you focus on continuous improvement – this might include tools and relationships
- Be honest and encourage ideas that solve process-related problems
- Even if everything went well, have this meeting – retrospectives provide ongoing guidance for the next sprint.
"With the speed of change expected to continue, the need has never been greater for an operating model that keep up." - McKinsey
Agile lessons to live by
As a team of experienced agile practitioners, we’ve picked up some key learnings about what it takes to get the most out of your agile ceremonies and create the foundations of a truly agile organization.
Here are our top tips to make your ceremonies a success:
- Be deliberately present - During the ceremonies, remember to take moments to pause and remind yourself of why you’re there. Show others that you’re present by giving them full attention and using your body language. In a remote setting, angle your camera as though you’re sitting across from them, look into the lens regularly, and use a distraction-free background.
- Practice active listening - Think about what the person is saying, who they are, and what they need from you. Are they looking for a soundboard, do they need your help or opinion, or are they looking for an emotional connection?
- Understand motives - Understand the motivations of your teammates before speaking. Consider why they should care about what you’re saying by connecting your message with their own motivations. Provide context where possible to let them know why your message matters.
- Be flexible - It's important to remember that there is not a one size fits all approach to agile ways of working. What works for one team may not work for another, so you need to experiment to find out what works then tailor processes to suit your team's needs.
- Create cultural alignment - The best processes in the world won’t deliver what you need if you don’t have the culture to support their delivery. Agile ceremonies need to be supported by a culture where people are actively engaged, confident to raise issues, and value continuous improvement.
Agile ceremonies lead to better results
While it can take time for teams new to agile to adjust to agile ceremonies, they are worth the effort. By providing a clear structure and achievable outcomes, they help align everyone on the product, communication, and priorities.
The result? Agile teams that provide better quality products faster – and deliver real business outcomes.
Wherever your organization is on your agile journey, it’s worth keeping in mind that each team and each suite of products are different, so there’s no standard recipe for success. The good news is that by working within the continuous improvement mindset the agile framework promotes; you too can iterate and improve your agile ceremonies over time.
Ready to get started?
Easy Agile TeamRhythm supports your team's agile practices in Jira. Supporting your team from planning right through to retrospective, TeamRhythm helps you and your team work better together to deliver value to your customers.
Features include:
- Agile sprint and version planning tool - Planning is quick and easy when you create and estimate issues on the story map. View your work under initiatives and epics, and see swimlane stats at a glance, ensuring team capacity is filled but not overcommitted
- Agile story mapping - Map the customer journey using initiatives, epics, and stories alongside your agile Jira boards. Quickly and easily add new or existing stories inside the story map. Drag and drop to prioritize by value to the customer.
- Product backlog refinement - Escape your flat backlog and view your work on the story map matrix. Drag and drop issues to prioritize or schedule. Quickly update story summaries and story point estimates with inline editing for a better backlog.
- Team retrospectives - Celebrate success, gain insights, and share learnings with team retrospective boards for scrum and kanban, encouraging collaboration and transparency, so you and your team are continuously improving.
Agile Best PracticeAgile Implementation: How to Choose an Approach and Framework
“Agile” is a simple word that means quite a lot today. What was once resigned to software developers and product development is now commonplace in many businesses, and agile implementation is showing no sign of slowing down.
It all boils down to this: Businesses today must be able to adapt fast.
The rigid approaches that worked for years don’t fit our rapidly changing business landscapes. Businesses of all shapes and sizes need to continually adapt to changing requirements, the changing needs of a global economy, cultural shifts, and evolving technological advancements.
It’s clear that agile is the way of the future, but how do you implement such a massive change across an organization, especially enterprises? Do you need a top-down approach, a bottom-up approach, or something in between? Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of agile and how to choose the best agile implementation approach.
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Why switch to an agile approach?
We’ve covered the benefits of agile in detail in our Beginner's Guide to Agile Methodology, but let’s recap some of the key points and why so many businesses are choosing to make the switch.
Agile practices focus on an iterative approach that continually adapts to new information and circumstances. By contrast, traditional project management generally adopts a waterfall approach — the project manager lays out a plan at the beginning of a project that the project team is expected to follow to the letter.
The problem with the traditional project management process is that it leaves little room to quickly grow and evolve. Agile project management and agile software development, on the other hand, need feedback and iterations at every turn. Agile teams test early and often to ensure they are on the right path, and they make adjustments in real-time.
The benefits of agile methods are far-reaching — that’s why we love it! Though it may take time to implement, agile is a worthy investment for any future-focused organization.
Additional benefits of agile:
- Managers can more easily account for the capacity of individuals and entire teams.
- The team can better manage work in progress (WIP).
- Everyone can clearly visualize the prioritization of tasks.
- Bottlenecks or roadblocks are addressed before they halt progress.
- Wasteful processes are eliminated or changed to improve efficiency.
- Multiple voices are included in the decision-making process.
- Teams can make iterations on products or projects in real-time.
- Stakeholders, customers, and end users are involved in your processes.
- Teams can provide continuous delivery to customers and stakeholders.
- Collaboration and teamwork improve.
With Easy Agile Programs you can equip your distributed or co-located teams to implement the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) without leaving Jira.
Agile implementation: Top-down or bottom-up?
So, you believe in agile and you’re ready to make it happen, but what’s the best approach? Do you implement it from the top-down or bottom-up? Let’s find out!
A top-down approach to agile implementation starts with those in charge. It often begins with management or business owners who hear about the benefits of agile and want their business to adopt agile practices. The problem is, when an idea only comes from the top, it can catch the rest of the organization off guard. If those in charge don’t give enough notice or provide all of the necessary resources and time to implement new ways of working, employees can become resentful and push back against the change.
On the other hand, when agile implementation comes from the bottom-up, leadership can push back. Teams and team leaders may want to improve their processes and adopt new ways of working, but they may not get adequate support or resources when they need them. It can take time to convince those in charge of the benefits of agile, which can take away from the time needed to actually learn and implement agile practices.
A hybrid approach
The good news is you don’t need to pick just one. The best approach for your business may turn out to be a hybrid approach. The more people you have on board, the better.
Agile implementation is easiest and most effective when as many people as possible buy into the process. It’s best if you have buy-in throughout multiple levels of your organization, from employees to managers to owners to CEOs.
Push-back on change is quite common in organizations, no matter the industry. It’s important to have people throughout the company who believe in the value of agile, are passionate about agile processes, and are excited about the possibilities agile presents.
Choosing an agile framework
As you implement agile principles, you’ll need to choose the framework that works best for your team. Depending on the needs of your team and organization, you may choose to adopt one framework or establish a mixture of frameworks.
Below, we’ll outline a few popular agile methodologies.
Scrum
Scrum is a strange word that’s very popular as a software development process. It’s a series of events that revolve around repeating sprints. One sprint (or Scrum) begins with sprint planning. The product owner reviews the product backlog, which represents all of the work that needs to be completed. They choose which items/tasks are the most important for the upcoming sprint and move those tasks into the sprint backlog.
Next, the development team, guided by the Scrum Master, works over a two-week span to complete the sprint backlog. Each day, the team meets for daily standups, which allow the team to go over what was accomplished over the previous 24 hours and discuss any possible roadblocks that stand in the way of the team completing work.
Lastly, the team completes a sprint review to gather feedback from stakeholders. They also conduct a sprint retrospective to discuss what went well and what didn’t over the course of the sprint. The insights are carried over into the next sprint to help all team members keep improving.
Wow! 🤯 That was a whirlwind explanation of Scrum. If you want to understand the process in more detail, we cover Scrum in a number of other guides, including the difference between Kanban and Scrum and guides to Scrum sprint planning and Scrum retrospectives.
Kanban
The Kanban framework is a visual process that helps teams manage the amount of work in progress. It allows teams and team leaders to see an at-a-glance view of what’s currently in progress and what’s on the horizon.
A Kanban board has three sections: to-do, doing, and done. Tasks flow throughout these sections one at a time to ensure no one is taking on more than one task at once. This ensures focus is always put on work in progress, no one gets bogged down with too many tasks, and potential bottlenecks are discovered before they impede productivity.
Chances are you’ve seen a Kanban board in action in some form or another. Trello is an example of an interactive Kanban board. The Kanban framework can be used on its own or paired with other frameworks, such as Scrum.
Lean
The lean methodology focuses on eliminating waste to improve efficiency. Lean follows five main principles: identify value, map the value stream, create flow, establish a pull system, and seek perfection.
Lean aims to waste less time by ensuring processes, communication, and the transfer of products or services run smoothly. When waste is eliminated and time is optimized, businesses can reduce costs. Efficiency is paired with a continuous improvement mindset, which helps teams work better together and deliver ever-improving products and services.
➡️ Learn more: Understanding Lean Agile and the 5 Lean Principles.
These are only a few popular agile methodologies. To learn more, read our article on 8 Software Development Methodologies Explained.
Seamless agile implementation
Agile implementation works best when people at all levels of the organization buy into the agile transformation. A top-down approach means the leadership is on board, but it forces employees to adopt a new way of working, and they may not be comfortable with the change. When it’s the other way around, employees, team members, and team leaders will struggle to implement agile without the support from those in charge and the people who allocate resources. A hybrid approach is often ideal, where as many people as possible are excited about and invested in the transition.
With the right tools, agile implementation becomes even easier. Easy Agile is dedicated to helping teams work better with agile. We design products that highlight the customer journey and allow teams to collaborate with each other seamlessly.
Easy Agile Programs is simple to use, collaborative, flexible, and it integrates directly with Jira. You can contact our team at any time to learn more about our suite of Jira products!