What are the 4 Agile Values?
THE 4 AGILE VALUES EXPLAIEND
Agile is an iterative/incremental approach to project Management that helps teams deliver value to customers fast. This approach works best in situations where the problem being faced and/or the approach to solving that problem is not fully known or easy to describe upfront with enough confidence.
With this level of uncertainty in the project environment, it will be counterproductive and a waste of time and resources if the team tries to come up with a full description or a detailed plan of action (for something not fully known) before implementation can begin. The team should rather adopt a “learn and adjust” approach to address such problems.
Several things standout when thinking about an agile project. I will discuss two of those things, which are speed and value
SPEED
In solving a problem where the needs and requirements are not very stable, an agile team realizes that the best person to give approval to product features is the customer, not the technical team. This means that no matter what the team is working on, until the customer confirms that the solution is meeting a real need, the team is not creating real value.
This places a demand on the team to get whatever they are doing out into the hands of the customers as fast as possible and get early feedback so they can confirm if the product has demonstrated value. Early release of products to the customers does not serve as a means of validation course correction only but avails the customer with functional products they can take to the marketplace and gain business advantage. Early delivery of value is a very important concept in agile.
VALUE
Value is something that has worth to a person or a purpose. In a business environment serving different stakeholders, value needs to be defined for each stakeholder or group. Unfortunately, value may not always appear crystal and evident from the beginning but tend to evolve over time as information, knowledge and experience grows.
An agile team must keep an eye on what is valuable to the customer at every given point and be willing to make adjustment if they are on a path that does not lead towards value creation.
The pursuit of early delivery must be mixed with value. Our goal is not to delivery whatever the development team creates but to deliver something that is of value to the customer early.
AGILE STRUCTURE
To make Agility (the ability to respond to change and deliver value to clients) possible, certain practices and principles must be adopted both at the team level and at the organization level. Without these values and principles, being agile will only remain as a cliché and not reality.
The Agile Manifesto
Back in 2001, a group of 17 people met to discuss software development and factors that made it successful. Agreeing on common problems in the software development space led to documenting the solution steps to address them. Yes, agile came from the software perspective but the benefits have since expanded beyond that into other settings. At the end of that meeting, the Agile Manifesto was written containing 4 values and 12 principles representing the mindset needed in developing and encouraging agility.
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The 4 AGILE VALUES
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
This value emphasizes the fact that people are the most important assets you have. Especially in a change driven environment, good results are produced when people work closely together towards a set objective rather than in environments where there is limited or no collaborations within team members.
If you have the goal of improving the way people respond to change and solve problems, remove barriers within your team and allow them to truly collaborate.
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Agile teams are result oriented. At the end of the day/sprint/ iteration or phase, the results (working software) you resent to stakeholders speaks volumes compares to a well-documented process but poorly functional solution.
When we think about satisfying customers, a critical point will be in the working software we deliver to them. Emphasis on “working”. Our aim is to give the customer something that meets their goals. Since we will only know we have delivered that when we get confirmation from the customer, we should minimize excess upfront documentation till we can confirm that value has been delivered.
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Some projects treat their customers as third-party agents to be met with only at the beginning of the project and at the end during presentations. Agile advocates that customers are treated more as partners working together towards a common goal.
Collaborating with your customers is not just a wise saying. It is a strategy to feel their pain points even as development is going on, listen to their concerns and constantly adjust your solution to address their needs.
Responding to change over following a plan
Why do we have projects? Projects are implemented to enable organizations address problems or realize opportunities. What do you do when the problem evolves while you are still developing the solution? Well, one approach would be to follow the initial plan and deliver the solution according to plan even though this will no longer give satisfaction to the customer as it does not meet their new needs. A better approach will be to adjust your solution to address the new problems even if the new solution is different from the initial plan you had.
This is what it means to be flexible. This is what it means to be agile