All product teams want to be agile, but not everyone realizes that Agile isn’t a set of tools like moving cards and working in sprints, but first of all a philosophy and a set of principles by which the work of the team is built. The essence of this philosophy is continuous process improvement and the ability to quickly adjust to market demands.
Let’s take a closer look at how to apply the 5 principles of the Agile Manifesto in practice.
Customer Needs Always Come First
The highest priority for developers, be they those who work on https://20bet.com/ or those who work on a flower online marketplace, is to meet customer needs through regular and early delivery of a valuable product.
In order for the product to be in demand, it’s necessary to be guided by the customer’s real requests, rather than trying to invent and impose the customer’s opinion.
Regular provision of intermediate results of product development to the client allows to track in time whether the team is moving in the right direction and, if necessary, to adjust the vector of work so that the final result satisfies the client.
Motivated Professionals Should Work on the Project
The best Agile teams are close-knit teams where each member is a professional, can independently take on tasks, propose their implementation, and communicate with the customer.
Such teams are self-organized and don’t need “top-down” tasks and micromanagement. They don’t divide tasks into “their own and others'”, but bear collective responsibility for the result and can make all necessary decisions themselves.
They believe in the idea of the product and are motivated to realize it at its best.
A Working Product is the Main Indicator of Progress
A working product is one that the customer uses and closes their need with it. Let’s go back to the car analogy: if a car doesn’t have air conditioning, but it can drive, it’s a working product, because the basic need is closed, and the rest are details that can be completed later.
The opposite example, which doesn’t correspond to this principle, is when the team tries for a long time to bring the product to perfection and only then rolls it out in its entirety. In this case, the client doesn’t see the intermediate results of the work, the progress isn’t transparent for him and he cannot give feedback in time. As a result, they may not be satisfied with the result, and the resources to create the product will have already been spent.
Direct Communication Is an Effective Way to Exchange Information
Instead of regulations and hierarchy – live human communication. The closer the contact between team members, the more discussion of work processes, the better. Face-to-face meetings, calls, chats – any convenient format.
Agile teams try to minimize coordination roles, i.e. communicate directly with each other and with the customer rather than through sales-owners, managers, Scrum-masters. Emerging issues are discussed immediately when they arise, rather than being silenced and waiting for a meeting.
Collaboration is also encouraged, such as the mob programming format: when a team writes code in real time at one computer.
Changes in Requirements Are Welcome Even at Late Stages of Development
Agile processes allow you to use change to give the customer a competitive advantage. Criteria and product requirements can change during development, and that’s okay. It doesn’t matter what you planned, it’s important that the outcome is relevant to the customer.
The market isn’t static, it’s constantly changing, so it’s impossible to perfectly design the entire project architecture in advance. The team must be ready at any moment to abandon ready-made increments and redesign parts of the product being created based on the client’s needs.
The Agile team is always in a state of market research. For this purpose, regular meetings are held with clients, investors and the product team.
Lynn Martelli is an editor at Readability. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and has worked as an editor for over 10 years. Lynn has edited a wide variety of books, including fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, and more. In her free time, Lynn enjoys reading, writing, and spending time with her family and friends.
