Why Are We Doing Agile?

  Agile   ProjectsAtWork  

Organizations and teams must come to understand why they need agile before choosing a methodology or tool to implement it. A mandate alone will not work. It is the overarching goals, values and principles of Agile that must ultimately guide teams in the adoption and adaptation of its practices.

A few years ago when I was in management, it was my responsibility to look for ways for teams to be more effective in implementing and completing projects. While we were following industry best practices as recommended by governing bodies such as the Project Management Institute (PMI) and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), we still had too many projects that were considered failures or took too long to provide value back to the business. I quickly discovered Agile software development as a possible solution by reading several books and attending local user groups listening to those that had tried the practices. While I didn’t understand everything I needed to know about the practices, I was eager to get started and see some of the benefits that have been obtained by other teams that have adopted Agile.

However, we were really struggling with the adoption of these practices. We lacked the experience needed to implement the practices successfully and didn’t know how and where to make improvements.  We also had many people resistant over the changes because …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.