20 years on, is ‘Agile’ still just an alternative way of developing software?

On the 11th February 2001, seventeen people met to find common ground on how to create an alternative way to develop software, one that does not treat the user as a second class citizen. The result of this gathering was a set of values and principles that inspired practices such as understanding customer needs, collaborative problem solving and correctly motivating technologists all in the pursuit of creating better software and products for users: The ‘Agile Manifesto’. In the twenty years that have gone by, the response to the manifesto has been enormous. People from all around the world have created a wealth of knowledge on how we can put these principles and values into practice, not just for software development but beyond.

Twenty years ago the digital landscape was a very different place. It was a time where news of another Dotcom company going bust was a daily occurrence. Texting was only starting to become popular and of course we all had dial-up internet connections. There was no TikTok, Facebook or iPhones. It is fair to say however that the digital landscape has dramatically evolved since 2001. We are currently experiencing an exponential rate of change and disruption in business driven by modern technology; cloud computing, computer processing, chip design and the ubiquity of bandwidth.

With technology as the backbone of the digital economy, the creation of software has become one of the key players in how to develop and evolve business opportunities. Technology is becoming the core of every business. Every business is growing their ‘digital agenda’ and are fighting to compete and survive in such a hyper-creative global digital marketplace. Therefore twenty years on, we need to ask ourselves, does ‘Agile’ play a role in how we can build better businesses or is it still a methodology for technologists?

Let us firstly take a second to find some common ground on how I view the word ‘Agile’. I define the term by the original manifesto. The four values and the twelve principles. I prefer not to use the word ‘Agile’ but speak more to the agility the manifesto can offer to software and business. The various set of agile practices that I encourage teams to adopt are specific to their unique set of challenges. These custom set of practices are tailored to solve the team’s particular problems and will support positive growth and development in their business.

But can ‘Agile’ be applied beyond software development and foster business growth?

Influence on business strategy:

Typically, organisations introduce ‘Agile’ practices via their software development teams. ‘Agile’, is unfortunately still seen by many as an IT methodology. One of the principles of ‘Agile’ is to satisfy the customer through the early and continuous delivery of valuable software. A business will typically centre its strategic goals and strategy around providing value to customer thus being able to sell its product or service. Just like software requirements, a business strategy is laden with unvalidated assumptions. Concepts that people think will drive the business in a particular direction once implemented. ‘Agile’ teaches us that we should build the simplest thing that will become valuable to customers and allow us to learn if future development of the feature will be a success. Surely, the same mindset can be applied to the business objectives and it’s product and services.? To achieve competitive advantage, any business must be willing to learn and pivot at speed. A business must validate the marker demand for their product as a priority. I would argue it is more important for the business leaders and teams to incorporate the same ‘Agile’ mindset to build, measure and learn, at earlier intervals, on a grand scale to validate the direction and demand of the business.

Influence on people and workplace culture:

Another principle that ‘Agile’ promotes is to build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need. Trust them to get the job done. Even if ‘Agile’ is currently seen as an IT initiative, it is not right to just properly motivate the technologists in our businesses. We need to motivate everyone who contributes to building great products/services in the very same way. This style of leadership is contagious and once introduced and successfully ingrained in technology teams then business leaders are always eager to follow suit and rightfully so. The mindset of providing the right environment and support for all employees and trusting them to get the job done will have a very positive effect on the overall organisation. This type of culture attracts and retains passionate and talented individuals. I’m hopeful the industry has rid itself of tagging positive workplace culture as a vlaue applicable only to ‘Agile’ or a way of building culture in software teams. No matter the business, how a system of people organise themselves in the most effective manner is to ensure they are poperly motivated. Remember, automony, mastery and purpose are the key to the correct culture in any system.

Influence on process improvement:

Learning and development is a big part of growing ‘Agile’ software development teams. Every aspect of the development cycle is on the table for improvement: from individuals and their interactions, the quality of the software, to the process of how ideas get turned into working software. Many teams continuously look to improve and better understand their process using Kanban practices, a framework within ‘Agile’ that focuses on waste management and lean product development. However, most technology teams can rarely influence upstream roadmap planning, ideation or even budgeting. These activities generally restrict technology teams as they are unable to apply the same speed of change that far upstream. We rarely think of the entire end to end process as a single system and therefore only ever retrospectively evolve a portion of the full process. What if we learn that our business strategy is not working or the product and servies being delivered are failing to make an impact on users and we need to rethink and re-plan? There is only so far you can go before decisions are fixed regardless of the learning. The best case scenario we can hope for is that the learnings will be considered in next years planning. Is that too late? Can we remain competitive with that speed of change? Considering all the actors involved in the full decision making process and understanding jow they can work together as a unit is one of the most important ways to help ensure the business or product as a whole can pivot when new validated learnings are identified. The hierarchical nature of how businesses are structured makes it hard to see that we are bound to a bigger system and the only path to success is if the entire business pivots rather than a single team.

The digital world is not the only place where ‘Agile’ makes an appearance. The Hôtel-Dieu Grace Hospital in Ontario, Canada has set out to improve patient wait times and overall patient and staff satisfaction from the hospital’s emergency department by using values and principles of one of ‘Agile’s frameworks, Lean. Their approach was to consider their organisation from the users point of view. From walking into the hospital to leaving the hopsital. One of the important points to note here is that the hostipal needed to consider itself as a single system that cross departments if any improvements would be noticed by their patients (users). One of many examples where other industries are starting to better understand their relationship with ‘Agile’ and continious improvement.

We need to stop viewing the various ‘Agile’ values, principles and practices as an IT methodology to create software and start considering it as also a way to iteratively build better businesses. Organisations need to bake in a single a methodology throughout the entire organisation, from IT to Product to Finance to Marketing.

Twenty years on, the values and principles of the ‘Agile Manifesto’ have gone well beyond its brief, and I wonder, if ‘Agile’ has become a full business and software development methodology in the digital era? If the landscape continues to evolve as it has done, it will become more important than ever to, firstly, better understand the term, ‘Agile’ and secondly, appreciate the influence ‘Agile’ can play in building a better business.

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