Agile beyond software development
Foreword: this article is not aimed at providing you with the “ultimate truth” and the “right answers”, since the concept of truth by itself is relative. Nor does it tell you which theoretical dogmas to follow. Instead, it aims at giving you food for thought, provoking a critical view on the contents provided, analyzing, and using it in real life, if applicable.
Almost twenty years ago, back in 2001, a group of 17 software developers wrote the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. Today, the agile approach has not only become widely spread and set up a standard for the software industry but has also contributed to the creation and the popularization of such professions, as scrum master and agile coach. Agile Scrum, even though predominantly related to building and delivery of software products, is sometimes also used in other activities within various innovative companies, such as marketing, sales, etc. Agile goes hand in hand with lean product development principles and design thinking techniques. Yet, the concept of being agile is much broader and can be applied not only in other industries beyond startups and technology but in other aspects of life in general. So, let’s have a closer look at the Agile Manifesto and find out how can it be applied in our everyday life!
At its core, agile principles advocate early delivery of valuable software combined with continuous improvement and adaptive planning. They promote more interaction within the cross-functional development team and welcome changing requirements since they secure more value for the users. They foster leadership and emphasize the necessity to build projects around motivated individuals by providing them with an environment where they can implement their ideas, use their strengths to maximize value for the project, improve their current, and gain new skills. They encourage self-organization of teams which should self-reflect on a regular basis, in order to assess and improve their working modus. Let’s have a look at some of the examples of how agile principles can be “translated” into everything we do:
Early and continuous delivery of valuable software = Start with a single step and be consistent.
No matter what you want to achieve, is it succeeding in a new kind of sports, learning a new language, or building a new venture — start with a small step and continue doing them on a regular basis. Training three times a week, learning 5 new words per week, or making 5 sales calls a day — all these actions will bring you significant results if you do it, let’s say, at least for a year. It is easier to concentrate on these smaller goals than dreaming of becoming a champion right away.
Welcome changing requirements = Be open to unexpected opportunities.
Planning our life is a great thing but things rarely happen 100% according to the plan. At the same time, the world sometimes brings us promiscuous events which very often bring unexpected opportunities. It can be getting a random LinkedIn message from a recruiter, meeting your possible partner at a conference, or your car breaks, and you need to stop at the nearest petrol station where you meet your future wife. The fact is — all these events lead us somewhere and often we need to change our plans, so we have to be flexible and open to change.
Deliver working software frequently… with a preference to a shorter timescale = Break down your long-term goals into concrete steps and short-term tasks.
There are at least three great things in breaking down major dreams into smaller action items. First of all, you get an understanding, that those BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goal, a term proposed by James Collins and Jerry Porras) can be broken down to concrete small steps that you can focus on and which will serve you as a guideline. You can then prioritize these steps and set deadlines, and, as a next step, create a roadmap, so that you can see, when is the goal achievable. Secondly, after finishing these smaller tasks one by one, you will get a feeling of accomplishment and will be able to track your progress. Last but not least, you will always know what to focus on, why are you focused on this particular thing now, how does it contribute to your achieving the BHAG, and what to do next.
Working software is the primary measure of progress = Results speak more than plans.
You can tell other people that you’re training very hard, or that you are reading a lot, but statements about the results, e.g. how much muscle weight you have gained, how much fat you have lost, how many and which particular books you have read recently are much more effective. Having plans is a great thing, but doesn’t mean you will ever achieve them. On the contrary, your achievements speak about your character, dedication, and hard work which is already put in. This refers to your profession, hobby, sports, relationships, family, etc.
Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility = Greedy pays twice.
In software development, poor technical architecture and domain design will lead to numerous additional, unnecessary iterations and numerous tries to improve the badly designed product. At the end of the day, it will most probably end up with rebuilding the whole product from scratch… if there will be enough resources or closing the project if there will be none. In any other aspect of life, it works just the same. You will end up losing time and money if you choose low-quality construction materials or cheap furniture for your house. You will achieve much lesser results if you save money on a good trainer in whatever kind of sports you are into, etc. Losing time and money significantly reduces your agility.
Simple, but not that easy to implement?
If we analyze these principles, we can see they are no rocket science. Yet, very often teams, businesses, and individuals fail to implement them in practice. Here are some reasons why it happens:
- Fail to integrate into the culture. In order for agile principles to work, it is not enough to write them down on the company Confluence space or put them in form of a sexy banner on the office wall (even though this would also contribute to the general working atmosphere). A lot of companies claim that they are agile but are in practice slow, unable to embrace the constantly changing business environment, and in the end fail to evolve.
- Overcomplication and failure to break down challenges into smaller action items. Many of us tend to overcomplicate things when starting something. We tend to be dreaming too much of how the end goal may look like, instead of doing consistent small steps towards achieving it; finding numerous reasons why things will not work out, instead of trying out several approaches one by one to find the working one; thinking of 100500 “very important” features which are all “must-haves” for our product to have from day one and, thus, blowing up the backlog, instead of defining an MVP and focusing on its delivery.
- Fear. Facing challenges, jumping out of the comfort zone, and stepping into the unknown is one of the most common fears which we, unfortunately, so often don’t want to admit and overcome. It is easier said than done, but with not taking risks and sticking to the old business model, types of activity, company, you name it, we risk even more. Even if it looks like a step back, sometimes it makes sense to make it in order to make two steps forward.
- Not taking responsibility. Being agile often means making fast, sometimes hard, decisions whether it refers to a product pivoting, taking additional debt, cutting costs, resolving conflicts within the team, saying “no” to your clients, etc. These things require a high level of responsibility from the respective decision-makers.
These and numerous other reasons prevent us from implementing the principles of agile manifesto when building our digital products or services. At the same time, we can see that both, these principles and the reasons why it is hard to implement them, have such an important role in other aspects of our lives.
Summary
The concept of being agile is much broader than software development, where it is mostly used. It is very highly related to other methodological concepts popular in the tech industry, such as lean startup, design thinking, kaizen, etc. But what is much more important — it can and should be applied in many other areas of our life. The values and principles of agility have been developed and discussed by thinkers centuries ago. They are so obvious, but yet often hard to implement in our everyday life, due to numerous reasons. I hope that all of us will get more familiar with the matter and use these principles in practice which will help us achieve better results in whatever we do and lead to a more meaningful life!
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