In this post, Senior Application Manager, AJ Weaver talks about the many interpretations of Agile.

First, let me start by saying that when I am talking about Scrum, I am not necessarily talking about Agile. All Scrum is Agile but not all Agile is Scrum. As you can see below, Scrum is just one cornerstone of Agile. The term is misused and abused across by pretty much all organizations, but I believe it is very important for organizations to clarify what they mean by “Agile”. I have heard many people define Agile over the past 20+ years of my software development life. Sometimes people like to define Agile as “not documenting things”. Other times, folks use the word Agile to make it seem as they are more responsive to customers. Most of the times, when people say they are Agile they really mean they are implementing a form of Scrum or Kanban. Other times, sales teams use it for marketing when their software teams are not Agile at all!

In my opinion, looking at the illustration above, organizations should pick the pillars of Agile they want to implement, communicate the pillars they use and make sure the organization understands it. For example, if your definition of Agile is: Scrum, Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, and Behavior Driven Development, then it should be documented and understood by all in your area of influence. That way when people speak about Agile, they have a concrete definition of what that means and are speaking apples to apples. 

That being said, your Agile definition may be different than others Agile definition. That is okay. Agile is a high-level conceptual idea with different pillars stemming from 30+ years of software development coming from Lean, XP, Manufacturing, etc. So, let me ask you…  What is your Agile? Premier Support for Developer can help you define your Agile and can get your team functioning at the highest level. Please contact us and we can discuss what Agile means to you as well as provide you with best-practice industry experience to achieve the highest level of productivity in your Agile environment.

Premier Support for Developers provides strategic technology guidance, critical support coverage, and a range of essential services to help teams optimize development lifecycles and improve software quality. Contact your Application Development Manager (ADM) or email us to learn more about what we can do for you.