What is Agile?
Agile is an iterative software development methodology with a goal centered around collaboration among self-organizing and cross-functional teams.
Processes used during agile typically employ disciplined and iterative project management practices in order to encourage frequent adaptation, engineering best practices, teamwork, and an alignment of goals. But perhaps the most-important advantage of agile is that it delivers value to customers faster. Projects are completed by combining smaller teams into cross-functional teams for open communication, collaboration, trust, and adaptation, reducing friction, breaking down silos, and facilitating shorter turnaround times.
In short, Agile empowers development teams with the ability to act and respond promptly, providing a better service to customers and a more-efficient and responsive solution for their organization.
Customer benefits
Teams are more responsive to customer needs and requests. They have the ability to provide high-value features to better the customer experience, and they can deliver in quick, short, iterative cycles.
Vendor benefits
Efficiency increases, and there tends to be a focus on the development of high-value features and services. Overhead is decreased and there is a reduction in wasteful effort and time.
Development team benefits
Work from development teams is highly valued and frequently used, which can give the development teams a sense of ownership and enjoyment in the work. Non-productive work is reduced to keep things focused and efficient.
Product manager benefits
Customers are generally happier when product managers ensure that the development work is aligned with customer needs—alignment comes from frequent prioritization of work through the agile process, which maximizes delivery.
Project manager benefits
Tracking projects is easier than a standard waterfall project management model, as project managers can use agile tools like Burndown Charts, task-level tracking, and daily Scrum meetings to monitor a project, catch issues, and address them quickly.
Executive and C-suite benefits
Agile project managers provide substantial visibility into development projects each day—this visibility helps stakeholders and executives adjust strategies based on immediately available information and not speculation about the state of the project.
