Agile is still relevant for any modern company. Its principles, which were written and implemented 20 years ago, are still the best. This realization came to me when I worked at large software company. But Agile became even more relevant since that time, because it helps to tackle two fundamental challenges: scaling and building a team. Agile helped us to cope with both challenges.
Agile bases on actual needs of the business. Therefore, it can help companies to choose the best way to growth, while at the same time keeping them within limits of personal, time and budget.
So, why Agile is so great? Here’s why:
- Agile doesn’t really need any software development. You just have to make small changes to your processes or workflows during the set periods of time. No big changes, no fancy software, just small changes that have an immediate positive impact and get bigger after a few months.
- There are no special requirements to work in Agile. Your employees don’t have to master special jargon or understand new software architecture. You can use whatever technology you’re most comfortable with.
- Agile methodology is flexible, iterative and supports different types of teams. Most of all, It makes the development process more efficient by breaking old processes into small tasks which are easily done and easily changed.
- It makes communication easier and makes planning and analyzing your work much easier. No matter how complicated your processes or system, with Agile you can break them down into manageable tasks and see what they are about and where their weaknesses could be.
My story with Agile had started when I was given the opportunity to become president of a global software development team, and was faced with the difficult and daunting task of leading such a team to its potential through the implementation of Agile. Having an opportunity to grow on other areas of growth was enticing, but as I grew and moved from one project to another, I realized that many of the core benefits that had been presented to me, in this organization, were actually quite limiting, and very different from what a software development team wanted to experience.
I met with my partner, who already worked with Agile for a while, to get a sense of this methodology. He taught me a great deal about Agile processes and told me of how he approached Agile in the past. As a result of this meeting, we decided to start a new project together on this methodology, to see how it fit with the current state of the business. It was obvious for us that it can be a great way to rebuild the company and to develop current processes at the same time. One of the first challenge for us was to define some terms which were important for some team members (or, at least, some of them), before we had enough experience to use a new methodology in new environment
We ended up choosing to lead a project, that incorporated Agile, which had three critical benefits:
- Improve Team Capabilities
- Improve Product Capabilities
- Improve Working Environment
- Improved Performance at the Product Level
Each of these benefits represented something that the team had asked for from me, and would have an impact on how they would interact with their customers/partners. Each of these benefits took us back to our definition of what was important to us, as a company, to have the team grow in an effective way to provide more and more value to our customers and partners. We came out of the project with the realization that any company, regardless of its size and scope, will benefit from these types of improvements. The challenge we faced was to figure out a way to give each of these benefits to the team in a way that they would be able to implement and achieve these improvements without changing their working process or their approach to their day-to-day operations.