The problem: There’s a lot of information out there about Agile methodology. Some of it is good. Some of it isn’t so good. Some of it is just plain bad.

That’s why we’ve put together this complete guide to Agile methodology. We’ll be covering:

• What is Agile methodology?
• Agile methodology advantages and disadvantages
• Agile methodology vs. traditional project management
• Types of Agile methodology
• Misconceptions about Agile methodology
• 4 steps to create an Agile workflow for your team
• 3 tips for creating an effective Agile workflow
• 5 books on Agile methodology worth reading

Let’s get it on!

What is Agile methodology?

An Agile methodology is an approach to project management processes, mainly used for software development.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Stem from Agile Manifesto’s values and principles, Agile methodology encourages flexibility, adaptability, communication, and collaboration in a team. It comes with many practices you can adopt to your team easily and achieve great results.

Agile Manifesto

Developed by 17 software development practitioners, Agile Manifesto is a declaration of 4 values and 12 principles in Agile methodology.

By following Agile Manifesto, you can develop better ways to build software, boost project performance, and enhance team collaboration.

Agile Manifesto’s 4 values include:

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Once all members are on the same page, the team can resolve any issues with available tools or processes.
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation. Documentation is necessary. But a working product is a much better option to fulfill customer expectations than tons of documentation.
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Instead of a one-time negotiation, involve customers over the whole product lifecycle to get to know their needs better.
4. Responding to change over following a plan. Changes are unpredictable, inevitable, planned or unplanned, linear or nonlinear. That’s why a fixed plan doesn’t always work.

Agile Manifesto’s 12 principles:

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. Keep customers updated with deliverables and iterations across regular intervals, rather than not receiving anything until final product delivery.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Be willing to adapt to last-minute changes and quickly work on change requests at any time, with minimal delay.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale. Agile embraces sprints with a fast turnaround of workable products.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project. Regular communication and interaction, as well as a constant feedback loop, is crucial.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. A motivated team is key to building successful products.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within the development team is a face-to-face conversation. Face-to-face discussions are great for building trust, establishing close relationships, and enhancing understanding.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress. The focus should be on completed, working software, not hours spent, the time elapsed, or complicated documentation.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. Maintain a consistent pace for each iterative cycle or sprint. Eliminate the need for overtime or crashing schedules while promoting frequent output of workable products.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility. An Agile focus should be on improving the product and achieving advancements consistently over time while handling changes.
10. Simplicity. Avoid or eliminate any additional documentation or work or process that doesn’t add value to the outputs. Focus on completing the requested project.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams. An Agile team should be self-motivated, autonomous, and skilled to take ownership of their work and deliver the best results.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly. The team should continuously advance their skills and processes to continually grow and improve.

Agile methodology advantages and disadvantages

Source: Pixabay

No project management methods are perfect. Each of them has its pros and cons. So does Agile methodology.

Agile methodology advantages

• Changes included: Shorter planning cycles mean the team can refine and reprioritize the backlog to accommodate changes throughout the project.
• End-goal can be unknown: Agile can work even when the end-goal isn’t clearly defined at first. As the project proceeds, the goal will become more apparent.
• Faster, high-quality deliverables: By breaking down the project into iterations, the team can focus on high-quality development, testing, and collaboration. More testing helps identify bugs and solve them quickly.
• Strong team interaction: More frequent communication and face-to-face interactions among team members.
• Customers involved: Customers are part of project development. They can see the work being delivered and share feedback.
• Continuous improvement: Constant feedback loop encourages improvement and innovation.

Agile methodology disadvantages

• Planning can be less concrete: It’s possible if some deliverables may not be complete in time. Or, if additional sprints may be added at any time during the project, it’s okay as well.
• Team must be knowledgeable: Agile teams are usually small but highly skilled in a wide range of areas. They must understand the Agile methodology.
• It requires high levels of commitment: The Agile process requires all team members to have active involvement and collaboration.
• Documentation can be ignored: As said earlier, Agile prefers working deliverables over comprehensive documentation. This sometimes causes incorrect interpretation or misunderstanding.

Agile methodology vs. traditional project management

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Traditional project management approaches like the Waterfall model are linear, meaning all the phases of a process occur in sequence. The sequence can be like this: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closure.

In a traditional process, time and requirements are fixed. You handle one big release in the time of six months or so. And, you possibly get user feedback only after the project is launched in the market.

Here is a detailed comparison between Agile and traditional project management:

Agile project management	Traditional project management
Teams have the freedom to accomplish deliverables as they choose, as long as they follow the principles and values. They have control over how they want to work.	Teams are typically tightly controlled by a project manager. They work to detailed schedules agreed at the outset.
No fixed requirements at the beginning. During the process, requirements can be added or changed. That means the final outcome can be different from the one established before.	The team identifies project requirements before starting the project. This can sometimes lead to many issues because stakeholders often have more requests than they need.
More user testing and customer feedback. They can show up frequently, making it easy to learn from mistakes, improve the product, and evolve deliverables. But more testing means more challenges to manage if users aren’t engaged.	User testing and customer feedback take place only when the project is completed. This means problems like bugs can emerge after the release. Often, these issues require a large number of resources to fix and even public recalls.
The team regularly evaluates the scope and direction of their project. They’re flexible to change the plan at any time in the process if necessary so that their product can meet changing needs. As a result, it can be difficult to write a business case beforehand because the final outcome isn’t fully known.	A project runs in a sequence and can take up to several years to finish. The product can be delivered at some point after the project begins. Hence, the end product can no longer be relevant because the business environment or the target market has changed.

Types of Agile methodology

There are a lot of Agile methodologies out there. Here are just a few of them:

• Scrum
• Kanban
• Scrumban
• Nexus
• Disciplined Agile (DA)
• Toyota Production System (TPS)
• eXtreme Programming (XP)

The list goes on.

Is it possible (and even necessary) to learn all of those? Probably not. Most teams simply don’t have the resources, or they don’t need to follow many methods.

So which Agile methodology should you focus on?

The answer to that question is different for every team. In this guide, we won’t cover every Agile methodology. We’re going to run through the Agile methodology types that have worked for us and many other teams.

These are Scrum, Kanban, and Extreme Programming.

Scrum

Scrum is one of the most popular process frameworks for implementing Agile. It’s excellent for managing complex software and product development.

A Scrum process includes many fixed-length iterations, called sprints. Each sprint can last one or two weeks, allowing the team to ship software regularly. Stakeholders and team members will meet to plan the next steps at the end of each sprint.

Roles in Scrum:

• Product Owner: A Product Owner has the vision of what to build and deliver that to the team. They take charge of setting business and market requirements, prioritizing tasks, managing backlog, providing guidance, and communicating with all stakeholders.
• Scrum Master: A Scrum Master helps the team do their best possible work. They organize meetings, deal with roadblocks and challenges, and work with the Product Owner to ensure the backlog is ready for the next sprint.
• Scrum Team: A Scrum Team can include 5 to 7 members. They aren’t distinct roles like a programmer, a designer, or a tester. Each of them completes the set of work together.

Advantages of Scrum:

• More transparency and project visibility, thanks to daily standup meetings.
• Increased team accountability because there is no project manager. Everyone works and makes decisions together.
• Easy to accommodate changes thanks to short sprints and a constant feedback loop.

Disadvantages of Scrum:

• Risks of “scope creep” due to a lack of a specific end date.
• The team requires experience and commitment.
• The Scrum Master doesn’t have much authority over the team, so it’ll be a big problem if they lack experience.
• Poorly defined tasks can lead to inaccuracies.

Kanban

The Kanban methodology emphasizes visualization. It paints a picture of the workflow process, so every team member can be aware of the work they need to complete.

Scrum and Kanban share the same goal—helping the team work effectively and promote collaboration.

But there are some significant differences between them, as shown below:

Scrum	Kanban
The number of tasks assigned to a team is fixed. That means you can’t add items to a sprint.	You can add tasks if there is available capacity. It’s useful when the requirements change frequently.
There are predefined roles, i.e., Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Scrum Team.	No roles are predefined.
Product backlogs are prioritized.	The prioritization is optional.
It requires high levels of organization skills.	It requires less organization.
Low levels of flexibility responsiveness.	High levels of flexibility and responsiveness.

Kanban boards are a tool to implement the Kanban method. Traditionally, a Kanban board is a physical board with magnets, plastic chips, or sticky notes. But now you can easily apply Kanban using a tool or application.

Take the Upbase project management software as an example. It allows you to make online Kanban boards, create as many columns as you want—‘to do,’ ‘in progress,’ ‘done,’ ‘testing,’ ‘approval,’ whatever—or customize them with colors to represent different details.

Click here to get free, unlimited access to Upbase’s premium features.

And if you like the tool, don’t hesitate to grasp this chance:

Advantages of Kanban:

• Increase flexibility: There are no set phase durations.
• Reduce waste: It ensures the team doesn’t spend time doing work that isn’t needed.
• Easy to understand: The visual nature of Kanban makes it intuitive and easy to learn.
• Improve delivery flow: Kanban focuses on just-in-time value delivery.
• Minimize cycle time: Kanban helps reduce the amount of time it takes for work to move through the team’s workflow.

Disadvantages of Kanban:

• Outdated boards can lead to issues: The team needs to update boards. Otherwise, the boards can include inaccurate information.
• Teams can overcomplicate boards: The team needs to keep all boards clear and easy to follow.
• Lack of timing: Columns in a Kanban board are marked by phase, with no time frames associated.

Extreme Programming

Extreme Programming embraces project management best practices while maintaining extreme quality and extreme responsiveness to changing customer requirements.

Source: Wikipedia

Extreme Programming has 5 values. Here they are:

• Communication: Participants communicate with each other using whiteboards and face-to-face discussion.
• Simplicity: Do only necessary things and ensure everyone can understand requirements without trying to guess.
• Feedback: Provide feedback so the team can know where to improve and optimize their practices.
• Courage: Carry out actions that aren’t harmful to the team. This will reduce all organizational issues.
• Respects: All members show respect to each other and offer feedback that honors relationships.

Like Scrum and Kanban, Extreme Programming has its pros and cons.

Advantages of Extreme Programming:

• Save costs and time: Extreme Programming focuses on the timely delivery of final products. The team solves problems through discussion, so they don’t use too much documentation.
• Simplicity: Developers create extremely simple codes that can be improved easily at any moment.
• Visible and accountable process: Developers commit what they’ll accomplish and show progress.
• Constant feedback: All team members are willing to listen and make any changes needed in time.
• Faster production: Extreme Programming allows developers to produce the software faster thanks to regular testing at the development stage.

Disadvantages of Extreme Programming:

• Lack of focus on design: Extreme Programming is more focused on code than the design—which is essential for software applications.
• Don’t measure code quality assurance: This can lead to defects in the initial code.

Misconceptions about Agile methodology

The Internet is full of misconceptions around Agile methodology. We’ll take some and clear them up with an explanation.

1. Agile equals Scrum

Busting the myth: Agile and Scrum aren’t the same things.

As explained above, Scrum is just one of the many Agile methodologies.

2. Agile is anti-documentation

Busting the myth: Agile isn’t anti-documentation.

Let’s look at one of the Agile Manifesto values: “Working software over comprehensive documentation.”

Some people rely on this value to state that Agile doesn’t favor documentation. But it’s more accurate to say Agile prefers face-to-face communication than using written words.

Agile doesn’t urge a team to do documentation only for the sake of having it. It focuses on delivering a working product to customers rather than creating detailed (and complicated) documentation upfront.

3. Agile means no planning

Busting the myth: Agile isn’t anti-planning.

In the Agile process, planning is often less visible. It’s because the Agile team pursues planning as a series of smaller, recurring activities. They also adjust tasks if any change occurs during the execution phase.

4. Work must fit in a sprint

Busting the myth: Work doesn’t have to match a sprint.

From busting myth #1, we already know that Agile doesn’t equal Scrum. That means your Agile team doesn’t have to fit work into sprints.

Let’s say you apply the Kanban method. As shown early in this guide, Kanban doesn’t require “sprinting.”

5. Team members get to do whatever they like

Busting the myth: Agile needs well-disciplined teams. That means team members don’t get to do whatever they like.

Let’s go back to the nature of Agile. It’s all about a collaborative and iterative process. It involves adaptation based on discussions among the team.

Source: Flickr

That means all team members should be ready to help each other at any time. Each of them should collaborate and support each other. They should be open to acquiring new knowledge to contribute to the team’s performance.

You can achieve this by having a well-disciplined team, not through anarchy.

6. Agile doesn’t work for projects with deadlines

Busting the myth: An Agile project can have a deadline.

In an Agile environment, you don’t have to put deadlines on every task related to a given project. But you can set a deadline for the whole project.

Think this way: After all, your clients need to know when a project will be completed. They just don’t need to know the exact due date for each incremental task.

7. Agile works only within small teams

Busting the myth: Agile can work for a large organization too.

It’s true to say Agile works best when implemented in a small team. However, that doesn’t mean it won’t work for larger teams.

If you’re running a large organization and want to apply Agile, you can start small and then scale the implementation within your organization.

It can be tough to switch from Google Drive to OneDrive in one batch. But you can do that by breaking down the task into smaller chunks.

The same rule applies when you decide to implement Agile on all levels. You can’t do it at once, but you can make it happen step by step.

8. Agile is the sure-fire way to success

Busting the myth: Implementing Agile doesn’t mean you’ll succeed.

No matter which project management approach you use, you can fail if you apply the wrong way.

People resist changes. Problems with culture fit. Lack of team ownership. These are significant obstacles to your team’s success.

9. Agile equals software development

Busting the myth: Agile isn’t only for software development.

Agile can be applied successfully in any business environment. Agile Marketing, Agile Sales—these are real-life examples of using Agile in any area.

10. Agile requires each team member to be a generalist

Busting the myth: Every team member doesn’t have to know how to do everything.

It’s unrealistic to expect a person to be proficient in all skills. That’s not Agile’s principle.

Agile values individuals who possess skills in multiple areas or those who can adapt and develop different skills.

As a software developer, you can understand design or know how to solve support tickets. But you’re not asked to do so.

Having additional skills gives you more values, as your team can count on you if they need extra help.

11. Leaders have no role in Agile

Busting the myth: Leaders do have a role in Agile.

The difference is it’s not the same level of management as traditional managers have.

In an Agile team, a leader can be responsible for setting objectives, organizing work, motivating and communicating, measuring, and developing people.

4 steps to create an Agile workflow for your team

Every software team has a process they use to complete work. At Upbase, we take an iterative approach to workflow management because it helps us meet our goal faster and exemplifies our team culture.

We’ve created our Agile workflow and applied it successfully. Follow our four steps if you want to start an Agile workflow for your team.

Step 1. Forming

First things first…

Make sure all members of your team understand Agile values and principles. Doing that helps your team adopt the right Agile practices.

Keep in mind the following:

• Implement and explain the Agile specialty roles to your team.
• Run Agile events like daily standups, sprint planning, and sprint retrospectives.
• Provide specific answers to any questions. If there is any doubt, try to solve it immediately.

Once all of your team members are one the same page, you can be sure your workflow will go smoothly.

Step 2: Storming

In this step, you develop your product backlog and divide it into sprints.

When doing that, involve all team members as they’ll be the ones executing the sprints. Explain to them what they need to accomplish if necessary.

Share each pain point with your team. In doing so, remember each member will have their own opinion. They may have slightly different values based on their experience, project, technology stack, and method in which they like to work.

Once you’re done with that, you can ensure your sprints are realistic, and everyone understands their responsibilities. Besides, it helps enhance your team collaboration and strengthen relationships.

Step 3: Norming

It’s time to define team roles.

For a Scrum Agile project, you’ll have to select a Product Owner and a Scrum Master.

If you apply another Agile methodology like Kanban, you may not need to assign these roles.

The key is to create a team that’s right for the Agile methodology you’re using.

Step 4: Performing

When your Agile team starts working, you should track performance to ensure they follow Agile values and principles.

You can apply these practices:

1. Organize daily standups to keep a check on any movement or development.
2. When your team starts working on their sprint’s backlog items, let the Product Owner pitch it to your customers. The goal is to collect customer feedback.
3. When your team finishes adjusting the project based on customer feedback, undertake a sprint review before moving on to the next sprint.

Conduct this process over and over again until your project has been completed.

3 tips for creating an effective Agile workflow

Source: Pixabay

Here are some tactics you can use to make your Agile workflow more effective:

1. Simplify the work process

The sooner you create and implement a workflow for your team, the better.

Also, when doing that, simplicity is the key. Don’t create a 10-step workflow while you can keep it 5. Overcomplicating can make everyone confused and create resistance to change, which leads to low productivity.

A typical workflow can include 5 statuses: “To do,” “In Progress,” “Review,” and “Done.” But depending on the type of project, you may want to add other workflow statuses like “Editing,” “Design,” “Promoting,” or “Published.”

2. Choose the right tool

It’s one thing to understand how you can implement Agile; it’s another thing to choose the right tool that can help you make it work for your team.

But with about 250 project management tools out there, choice can be hard.

To make your life easier, here are two critical criteria you can use to filter the noise and pick up your perfect tool:

1. Choose an all-in-one Agile project management tool.

Having to switch between many apps leads to app fatigue and kills productivity. Your team is tired of apps—they need a more efficient way to work.

That’s where an all-in-one tool comes in. It includes multiple features in one place and provides solutions to many use cases. It’s a perfect choice to improve productivity.

Need proof? 67% of knowledge workers said that it would make their lives easier and better if they could complete tasks from one place.

2. Ensure your chosen tool is simple and easy to use.

So your team can quickly know how to work with it from the get-go.

Managing a project is hard, don’t make it harder. You can’t accomplish a project in 10 days while you have to spend half of that time learning how to use the software.

Go with a tool that helps you focus on the essentials, not the one making more work for you.

Take Upbase as an example.

Upbase is an all-in-one project management tool for both individuals and teams. You can use it to manage tasks, track project progress, share documents, to name but a few.

That means using Upbase only, you don’t need to switch between many apps anymore.

And the best part? It’s dead simple to use!

3. Optimize your workflow

It’s time to make your workflow more efficient, based on what you observed from the first project. Here are some ideas you can try:

1. Identify which steps you should remove/add/change in the workflow.

For each step, ask these questions:

• Was it an obstacle that prevented your team from getting work done faster?
• Was it too big? Do you need to break it down into smaller steps?
• Should you remove it or combine it with another step to simplify the process?

2. Create a set of metrics to measure workflow efficiency

Your team members should know the results of applying the Agile workflow. By telling them this data, you can encourage them to continue to follow the process.

Consider these questions to measure the efficiency of your workflow:

• How many steps were in the process?
• How many tasks were completed?
• How long did it take to finish the whole project or a task or a step on average?
• Which task that took the longest time to complete? And which one was the quickest?
• Was the workflow easy enough to onboard new team members?

A well-designed workflow leads to increased productivity, team engagement, transparency, commitment, and trust.

5 books on Agile methodology worth reading

Source: Unsplash

Thousands of books on Agile have been published over the last few years. If you search for ‘Agile’ on Amazon.com, you’ll get about 7,000 results.

That makes it hard to choose the right book to learn about Agile methodology.

To make your life easier, we introduce the best 5 Agile books that our team reads and learn along the way.

1. “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries

“The Lean Startup” is an ideal book choice if you just start your way to implementing Agile. You don’t need to have any background knowledge or experience to understand concepts in the book.

This book teaches you how to identify the target market and build a business around your potential customers’ demand.

Besides, the author gives you clear explanations of how you can use the Lean methodology. It’s easy to understand and apply techniques in real life.

2. “Agile Project Management QuickStart Guide: A Simplified Beginners Guide To Agile Project Management” by Ed Stark

The book gives you a great overview of Agile methodology, ways to use it, how to choose the best framework for your project, and more.

It also offers free lifetime access to tutorials, checklists, and cheat sheets to help you plan and execute your first Agile project.

3. “The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products” by Dan Olsen

Whether you’re running a new startup or an established business, this book will benefit you in many ways.

It emphasizes the importance of defining your target market’s needs to ensure your final products meet your potential customers’ expectations.

4. Scrum: a Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

The book introduces everything about Scrum to you. It’s useful for those who are brand new to Agile and Scrum.

5. “Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time” by Chris Sims and Hillary Louise Johnson

Written by one of Scrum’s founders, this book is gold. You’ll learn why Scrum is beneficial, how to embrace the framework, and how to apply it to your team.

The book also goes deeper into Scrum than other books for beginners. Hence, it’s more suitable for those who already have a foundation on Agile or Scrum.

Go for Agile!

Now that you’ve understood a lot about Agile methodology.

Agile is meant to improve your work, not complicate anything. It can apply to many different businesses, and it can help you build an effective team.

Use Upbase today to implement the Agile methodology in your team, and let us know if Agile works in your organization. We bet you’ll enjoy it.