What is the Agile Manifesto?

 

In the early 2000s, projects were managed using the traditional waterfall approach. The approach was a structured approach where the inputs are placed in a standardized process and released the desired output. One downfall this framework had was that it did not take into consideration the rapid change in requirements that occurs especially in the IT industry.

  

To tackle this change of requirements a group of software developers discussed over 3 days and created the Agile Manifesto. Agile Manifesto is the tools required for organizations to adopt the Agile Scrum framework. The Agile Manifesto emphasis on the tools on the left to help navigate the rapid managing change of requirements.

 

Individuals and interactions over	Processes and tools
Working software over	Comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over	Contact Negotiations
Responding to change	Over following a plan.

 

The above table indicates the Agile Manifesto that was developed. Here the items on the left are prioritized higher compared to the items on the right. We will now be going through each item individually to help us understand why the items on the left are prioritized higher.

 

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

When managing a project using the agile framework, agile teams should focus more on talking to people. They should interact with the users and ask what the users want. The people who are represented by the employees will be developing the product or service for the customer. The processes and tools help the employees to do the work. This can only be done if there is a shift of mindset from organization from focusing on clients needs instead of available resources.

 

Working product or service over comprehensive documentation

The goal in the Agile mindset is to think as a customer and do what is valuable. In the context of a project, the most valuable tool is the partially developed working product or service. Time should be spent more on development work rather than the admin related work like documentation. Documentation can be captured using technology like cameras on smartphones can stored in an easily accessible knowledge repository. By developing the partially increment of product or service, we will be adding value to the customer.

  

Customer collaboration over contract negotiations

Contracts are legal documents between supplier and customers with details of the products or service being provided. The traditional project management process relied heavily on contracts to prevent delay of delivery, change of pricing and maintain a structured timeline of delivery of product or service. This can be done if the requirements remain the same. However, due to the rapid change of requirements in today’s working environment, the focus on contracts have reduced. This is because what was written in the contact initially has high ambiguity and uncertainty from the customer. The goal is to reduce the ambiguity of the customer by spending continuously getting feedback throughout the project. This promotes customer collaboration

 

Responding to change over following a plan

As discussed above, there needs to be more emphasis placed on talking more to people involved in the project and developing a working product or service while collaborating with the customer throughout the project life cycle. This allows companies and employees to tackle the rapid change of requirements better.

However, companies that focus on process and tools, comprehensive documentation and contract negotiation can only follow a plan and find it difficult to manage projects in this volatile business environment.

 

In summary, traditional project management uses the tools are methods are picked based on its suitability to complete the task. This is done so that a plan that was created initially is to be followed religiously. However, if you want to use Agile methodology, you need to change the tools and methods, because the tools and methods is suitable for responding to volatile changes in the business environment rather than following a plan.

 

To learn more about Agile Manifesto, join our “Agile Certification Scrum Master training  course”. Click here to learn more about it. 

 

Click here to learn more about our other Agile Project Management certificate course.