Lesson 1: What is Agile?
Definition
AGILE DEFINITION
A philosophy (a new way to think) and a strategy (a better way to work) on projects and making stuff that people love! Here are 7 easy ways to understand it:
1. Stay Flexible
Agile is all about being open and accepting of changes. The purpose of Agile is to teach us not to panic if the project plan needs tweaking. Instead of being glued to a plan; Agile empowers those who use it to say, "We need to change directions? Sure! Let's roll with it."
2. Teamwork Always Wins
In Agile, teamwork is the superstar. Imagine a team of people like computer engineers, designers, and even the customers, all teaming up. Then, they have meetings and talk to each other a lot to make sure everyone's on the same page. This healthy communication is why Agile works.
3. Take Small Steps
Agile breaks big projects into baby steps. They call these steps 'iterations.' Each one's like a mini-project that takes a few weeks. It's cool because you get to see results quickly and fix stuff if it's not perfect.
4. Customers Come First
Making customers happy is the name of the game. Agile's big goal is to make stuff people really are happy with. Agile teams listen to what customers want, and follow that like a treasure map. We call that "Customer Centricity."
5. Priority Power
In Agile, there is no multitasking. It has been scientifically proven that multitasking slows you down. Instead, we focus on one task at a time, in order to get things done faster. Our mission is always to do the most important stuff first. If something's super critical, it jumps the queue.
6. Always Get Better
Agile leaders and team members believe in something called "Continuous Improvement." This just means they try to get better and better, each day. They have check-ins to see what's working and what's not, so they can keep improving. Most importantly, they learn to take challenging or difficult feedback and grow from it.
7. Empower Teams
Agile teams are like minibosses of their work. They make their leadership's job easier, by deciding for themselves on how to get things done. This allows their leader to have some time back and mental peace to focus on running the business and teams become more responsible.
To sum it up, Agile is a way of working that helps us to be quick, and flexible, and make people smile with the things we create. We should also end by mentioning Agile is not just for tech stuff; you can use it for all kinds of projects, such as business, sales, marketing, and consulting.
Lesson Summary
Agile is a philosophy and strategy that focuses on projects and creating things that people love. It emphasizes flexibility, teamwork, taking small steps, prioritizing customers, continuous improvement, and empowering teams.
- Agile encourages openness to changes and emphasizes communication among team members.
- It breaks big projects into smaller iterations for quicker results.
- Agile puts customers first and aims to make them happy.
- It promotes focusing on one task at a time for faster completion and prioritizing important tasks.
- Agile teams continuously strive to improve and learn from feedback.
- They have autonomy in decision-making, which allows leaders to focus on other aspects of the business.
- Agile is applicable to various types of projects, not just tech-related ones.