Can Agile work in the education sector?

Farouq -

You've received lots of valid feedback from my esteemed virtual colleagues so far, so I will be brief.

Any organization in any industry could benefit from increased agility but how far they can go and the specific methodologies, tools or practices used might be constrained by the willingness of the leaders in the organization to overcome traditional behavior.

The real question is whether there is sufficient urgency in this industry caused by disruption from alternative types of education providers or other threats to commit to this transformation.

Kiron

Farouq, that is not Agile. That is Agile applied to software. In fact, as you know, the Manifesto has the word "software" for a reason. In fact, you can use Agile with any type of life cycle, for example waterfall. Agile was born before the Manifesto searching an alternative to Lean. That was in 1990 inside the Leihigh University when the USA DoD NSF/Agility Forum was created. Agile is a matter of enteprise architecute where one of the layers is the buisness layer (or architecture) where you can find the variables to take into account to use Agile for using into any type of business. For example, in our case, we use Tom Peter´s Seven S model to evaluate if Agile can be used into a business or a least the impacts and things to take into account to understand if it can be used.

Thank you Rami for engaging with the question.

Indeed, yours is the idea that first came to mind when I considered the question myself, but a few concerns had me in doubt.

1- Agile values Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

While this in principle should apply to this sector, it is not the case and the main hindrance is hierarchy. Forming a team can be difficult since instead of having generative specialists (as is the case with software development), we have specialized specialists ( think of university professors and other staff).

2- Agile values Working software over comprehensive documentation.
Arguing by analogy here, in education the outcome is engaging and inspiring content and experience rather than working software. This should precede comprehensive documentation, but here is the bottleneck: decisions are centralized and teams even if present and trained have less autonomy, and to go back to the previous point the present hierarchies can negatively affect team velocity and eventually the members engagement.

Now my view is that although Agile can be adopted, it certainly needs to be adapted to fit the current needs and practices of the educational sector. I am also more skeptical now, my opinion is "agile can certainly be tried, but would it work? and if yes how much better would it be than a traditional waterfall approach?"

Rami, thanks again for weighing in with your opinion, and I hope this wasn't too much "anti-agile attitude" for you.

You are welcome. I am not sure I fully agree with they way you are interpreting the agile mindset, values and principles.

1- No, that is not the case. In education, you focus on people and interactions more than tools and processes. You inspect and adapt your educational processes and tools to ensure there is proper understanding and interaction.

On another note, while agile says People & Interaction over Processes & Tools, that does not mean Processes and tools are not important.

2- Again, you are taking the meaning literally. Instead of working software, it can be working product or working method ... etc.

For example, instead of giving students bunch of text books and have them document everything you say, first make sure your method of delivery for the information is transparent and very well comprehended by the students (This is just a general example).

In summary, yes you can use agile and if not fully, you can use it as a Hybrid alogn with Traditional Approach. Example:

1- Inspect and Adapt your educational method.
2- Retrospectives.
3- Review Meetings.
4- Inspect and adapt the material and syllabus.

Those are a few of the agile practicies that can be used.