Thanks to the authors of the Manifesto for agile software development the term agility has become increasingly popular in the last 5 years. The Manifesto states explicitly what they believed, their core values and enduring purpose. It pushed the agile software development movement. The Manifest established a set of 4 simple rules or core values for developing complex innovative systems. Following the co-author Jim Highsmith with his book “Agile Project Management” we can easily apply these core value statements to Agile Project Management:

Responding to change: Don’t plan. Explore.
Reflects the agile viewpoint to focus on envision-explore not on plan-do and on adaption rather than anticipation. Innovative projects are characterized by envisioning and exploring rather than detailed planning and task executing. Thus the team has to see changes as a friend not as an enemy of the project.

Working products: Documents don’t work. Products do.
Describes the idea of delivering iterative versions of the real product according to the motto: “Documents don’t work. Products do.” With the side effect of lowering the cost of change or failure following the theory of early failure detection: “the earlier the cheaper”. In the field of Software Engineering the advantages are common known: Requirements are changing and large design and concept phases leading to massive failures, because then the linear implementation of the requirements without feedback and reliable tests often ends up in a disaster.

Customer Collaboration: Confidence over Contract Negotiations.
This value describes the importance of a close partnership to the customer in which each person has a specific role and responsibility. To prioritize the human aspects of a partnership more than it’s contracts means to find a collaborative relationship to the customer marked by confidence not driven by contract disputes. Because the goal is to deliver value to the customers, the customer defines the requirements that provide value and the business objectives quantifying it.

Individuals and Interaction: Making Participatory Decisions.
This value focuses on the importance of skilled peoples within agile projects. Without the right people all processes and tolls won’t produce results. Tools are very useful for speeding up efficiency but rely on knowledge and capabilities of the team. “A fool with a tool is still a fool!” The agile movement supports the individuals with the concept of self-organization, self-discipline and respect for the individual. Attaining this value is one of the most difficult in practice. The team has the autonomy to organize itself to fulfill the requirements in a best possible way. That is not common! At the end it’s a part of a new project culture, a new type of leadership that has to be implemented with lots of experience, discipline and social competence.

So let’s go for it ;-)
Yours,
Oliver Pretz