In recent years, more and more companies have adopted Agile. This has boosted the global services of enterprise agile transformation from $42 billion in 2024 to $180 billion in 2033. However, is changing to Agile that easy? To facilitate your transformation to Agile, we now elaborate on 12 Agile principles you should bear in mind. So what are these principles, exactly? And how do they look in practice? This article is the right place for the answers.
We all know Agile means moving and thinking fast and easily. Based on that concept, the Agile model was introduced, especially in the software industry, to facilitate and improve project management.
Right from the beginning, experts developed the Agile principles to help teams learn to use agile methods. Particularly, in February 2001, a group of experts from different tech subsegments met by chance in the Wasatch Range of Utah.
Confronting the so-called shortage of a standard mindset for software development, they built the Agile Manifesto that covers 12 agile principles. These principles, in other words, support tech specialists to think about projects and software development in an agile way.
Now, let’s take a deep look at each of them:
“Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.”
To make a product quickly delivered to end-users. Agile teams often focus on creating a minimum viable product (MVP). An MVP only comes with enough core features and is often used by early real customers. They accordingly give development teams early feedback about the software for continuous improvements in the future.
So no matter whether your team wants to build an MVP or release improved features. The highest priority is always making your customers happy about the values they receive from software.
How it works in practice:
FURTHER READING: |
1. What Is SCRUM And How Does It Work? |
2. The Importance of Scrum to a Software Product |
“Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.”
In some industries like IT, the market and customer demands are usually changing. Accordingly, a product that is developed with well-documented plans doesn’t always meet changeable needs. Therefore, agile comes into play to help resolve such a problem.
Particularly, agile processes enable product teams to respond to changing market trends, user demands, and even competitive threats with ease. Teams then can review, analyze, and add new findings when necessary to build a more satisfying and competitive product.
How it works in practice:
“Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.”
Agile allows development teams to shorten the time from ideating to releasing a product. To do so, agile teams repetitively conduct, deploy, and modify a product’s functionality in short cycles instead of building the entire software. In other words, agile teams focus on creating and shipping some small parts of the software.
This property helps set agile apart from traditional approaches which come with long development phases. Further, it gives your team more avenues to continuously validate hypotheses and ideas.
How it works in practice:
“Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.”
The agile model requires frequent interactions between a client (commonly known as “a product owner”) and developers.
As small chunks of work are conducted in short-term cycles and changes can be made, the presence of business representatives is necessary. This is because a successful product needs to be examined not only from technical aspects but also from business insights.
Therefore, frequent communication between product owners and development teams prevents misunderstanding and builds transparency and trust. Also, working together throughout the project helps ensure work progress and a product’s quality.
So how can this meeting be conducted? At Designveloper, for example, our team often holds a sync-up meeting that last around 15 minutes per day to get an overview of the task status and any difficulties encountered. This helps our team quickly address any challenges hindering software development.
How it works in practice:
FURTHER READING: |
1. SDLC Waterfall Model: Definition, Phases, and Pros & Cons |
2. 18 Software Project Management Methodologies for Software Development |
“Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.”
Agile itself has cons. Many companies, however, tackle its drawbacks and still succeed in creating the desired software by building a strong core team.
Accordingly, an agile team needs motivated individuals who have decent leadership skills and proper expertise to do jobs well. Also, team members should be given autonomy, a reliable working environment, and obviously defined responsibilities before projects start.
How it works in practice:
“The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.”
There’s a wide argument that face-to-face meetings are the best way to exchange information. Although this statement holds true to some extent, it’s not always possible for product owners and developers to meet in person. Especially today, many companies tend to use offshore outsourcing services. So most conversations now take place online (typically video conferencing).
Regardless of communication channels, the key meaning behind this principle is always motivating members to interact about software, strategies, and requirements in real-time.
How it looks in practice:
“Working software is the primary measure of progress.”
There’s perfect software, as the market is always changing and customers often alter their demands. Therefore, instead of depending on detailed plans and documents to build a so-called perfect product, you should focus on a working one.
The working software doesn’t only operate on your expected platforms and devices but also meet user and business requirements. Teams often release updated features to provide customers with useful values.
How it works in practice:
“Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.”
As said before, agile processes enable product teams to build and deploy new features continuously. This encourages a product’s sustainable development.
However, updating versions too often and too rapidly may exhaust team members, especially if they set too high goals. To avoid exhaustion and turnover, a cross-functional team should establish realistic expectations, learn to stay enthusiastic, and enhance work/life balance.
How it looks in practice:
“Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.”
As we’re talking about building software, its technical components and design are what you should care about. During the agile development process, frequent releases and updates are encouraged but with consideration. In other words, agile teams should attend to developing intuitive interfaces and free-bug codes to avoid unexpected troubles induced by poor technical performance.
How it works in practice:
“Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.”
For rapid shipping, the agile approach highlights the importance of simplifying the first version of a product.
Simplicity here means minimizing the amount of work done but still achieving the most optimal results. Like the Pareto principle, 80% of a team’s desired outcomes come from 20% of development work.
Accordingly, team members need to work on the most influential features that prioritize solving the pain points of users and reaching organizational goals. Building an entire complicated product also proves redundant during the agile development process.
How it works in practice:
“The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.”
The agile methodology is closely linked to the key principle of encouraging individuals to work together in a “flat” working environment. It’s where team members contribute opinions and then a whole team finalizes decisions rather than a managerial individual. This concept helps boost a group’s communication and values over the software development procedure. Besides, a self-organizing team can create the best designs and functionality for a product.
How it works in practice:
“At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.”
The agile model ties to the idea of continuous improvements. This concept is not only about the way you release new updates to reflect on the changing market and improve the software. But it also extends to development procedures and teams. In other words, your team should learn to become more productive and enhance processes.
How it works in practice:
Designveloper hopes that the 12 agile principles above can help you work more smoothly than before! For more interesting articles about Agile methodologies, subscribe to our blog today!
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