What is Agile?

The easiest way to think about Agile is to consider how we collaborate with others. Agile is a philosophy, a set of principles, and a mindset for maximizing the value of working with other people.

Agile is all about people, and not so much about processes. Solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams utilizing the appropriate practices for their context. (Scrum is all about the process of putting Agile principles into action, you can read more about the difference between Agile & Scrum here).

We’ve worked with countless organizations to transform their ancient “command and control” management style into best practices Agile collaboration. Where 1 manager used to tell their team what to do, Agile embraces the philosophy of a team working together to maximize the value of their team’s work.

A great example of Agile leadership

Perhaps a better way to communicate the spirit of Agile is to use concepts that we all are bit more familiar with. In the video below, a US submarine captain drives an intent-based leadership style to enable his team to out-perform all other submarines.

In an Intent-Based Environment it is possible for:

• People to feel valued and proud of being a part of something bigger than themselves
• People to know the organization’s goals and thoughtfully contribute toward their accomplishment
• People to feel inspired, by pushing control and decision-making down the organization people take responsibility and have the authority to rise to the occasion, even during times of change
• The organization’s success be on the shoulders of all people and not simply the “leaders”
• Leaders to be at all levels