It’s easy to understand Agile, but hard to implement in practice. The Agile way of working and thinking is efficient in so many ways, but it’s on us how to react to unpredictable circumstances. In the previous article, we talked about Agile values and their successful implementation into one organization.
But how about principles?
Drastic times call for drastic measures or Agile measures. Agile innovations made huge changes in different business areas. They also made a fantastic impact on the software industry and that’s inevitable. Did you think about how companies implement Agile principles when they use Agile for the first time?
Let’s remind ourselves…
What are 12 Agile principles of Agile Software Development:
#1Importance of early Delivery of the Product
#2 Easily adapt to change
#3 Frequently Delivery
#4 Cooperation between Business and Developers
#5 Importance of motivated individuals
#6 Face-to-face interaction
#7 Having an efficient working Software
#8 Maintain a Constant Pace
#9 Having a Technical Brilliance
#10 Always Simplicity
#11 Teams Self-Organization
#12 Regular Reflection and Adjustment
Also, like in the previous article, we can take the example of our bookstore to explain how Agile principles work in practice. So, we’ve just opened a fantastic bookstore with various assortment including gift program and valuable literature for different generations. But, the tastes of readers change daily and you need to be constantly informed about these trends. The competition is fierce, but what distinct you from them is how you’re gonna react to unexpected changes from the environment.
So, how an artistic organization can implement Agile principles in their system:
- #1 Importance of early Delivery of the Product: your readers want to have the most popular title in their personal library. Try to be agile and be the first publisher that published that book. Early delivery gives your customers invaluable satisfaction, right?
- #2 Easily adapt to change: welcome changing requirements, even late in development. As a publisher, try to easily adapt to changes that are necessary for each side, both organization and customers (in this sense – readers).
- #3 Frequent Delivery: short time to market. Meaning: try to frequently deliver values for your readers and make sure that those values are good and valuable for them.
- #4 Cooperation between Business and Developers: in this case – between the organization and Sales/Marketing managers in order to give the best solutions for each aspect of your business. This principle became necessary due to the extensive amounts of documentation that were part of the planning process.
- #5 Importance of motivated individuals: this means – each individual, including all employees in your bookstore. How to motivate them is a different kind of action, but it’s valuable and meaningful for later.
- #6 Face-to-face interaction: the most effective way of communication is face-to-face. Direct communication is fantastic on so many levels and that’s why each employee needs to know and tell others how he/she feels and what bothers him/her.
- #7 Having efficient working Software: in the bookstore’s case means that working software increases efficiency and productivity through the job and allows better organization of everyday tasks.
- #8 Maintain a Constant Pace: think about this – when you put Agile to practice, your goal is to avoid overburden and optimize the way you work so you can frequently deliver to the market and respond to change without requiring personal heroics from your team.
- #9 Having a Technical Brilliance: means that in a development context, this principle allows teams to create not just working software but also a stable product of high quality. Our bookstore must have up-to-date software with amazing tools to quickly respond to upcoming challenges.
- #10 Always Simplicity: but that also means a simple way of working, thinking and taking responsibilities. If you can do something in a simple way, why waste time complicating it?
- #11 Teams Self-Organization: Agile also means team self-organization. Allow your teams to generate a proper value and let them be responsible for their tasks and activities. That’s why Agile is so helpful in practice.
- #12 Regular Reflection and Adjustment: this principle allows you to experiment and improve your performance continuously. Especially in publishing. Adjustments to new circumstances are hard but very effective on other levels. You can’t lose anything.
Getting started with Agile is always challenging
…and that’s why Agile as methodology and its frameworks aren’t so complicated if you want to learn about them. And adopt through good practical examples. You can always gradually shift to Agile principles by using different software available on the market and with the support of the right people.
What do you think?
This article is written and partly inspired by Kanbanize.com blog Thank you for your guidance and great suggestions.
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