Table of Content
- The Agile manifesto
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
- Conclusion
Agile is common within software development but not often used in Enterprise IT. But Agile is as much applicable on Enterprise IT as software development. The definition of Agile is “quick and well-coordinated in movement”. Adapting to changes around you, which in Enterprise IT can be a hassle. This blog post will take a closer look at the Agile manifesto and how it can be translated to the Enterprise IT.
The Agile manifesto
You are not Agile by just following an Agile Framework like SCRUM. Agile is having the correct mindset and vision. Looking at the Agile manifesto you will not find any phrase like follow SCRUM or do a daily stand-up. The following four sentences are from the agile manifesto:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
Source: http://agilemanifesto.org/
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
The world is changing very fast and in our daily work, we are adapting to change. Each individual is part of the change and therefore interaction is very important. By having interaction with your peer’s new insights can be discovered. Processes and tooling can help with streamline the interaction but should never take over.
Working software over comprehensive documentation
As an IT department within an organization, you are also delivering working software. The software is the digital workspace delivered to the consumer of IT. Having the digital workspace working over the comprehensive documentation has, of course, a higher priority. Focus on minimal required documentation.
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Within software development, you have the “build, measure and learn” methodology. This is focused on collecting feedback and adapting to the feedback. To collect this feedback you need to collaborate with your customers. A contract can help you set certain standards but should never narrow the collaboration between the customer and the IT department.
Responding to change over following a plan
The IT industry is continuously caching and pushing updates. Look at Microsoft and the new strategy on how they deploy the updates. It is hard to adapt to all these updates for an Enterprise IT organization. So responding to these changes is more important than following a plan which can be outdated very quickly.
Conclusion
We’ve learned that the Agile manifesto is broad and applicable to not only software development. Agile is not just following a guide, it is a mindset which should be a part of the culture within your organization. This cannot be changed overnight and in an upcoming blog post, we will take a closer look at team composition to increase agility in your organization. If you have further questions please leave a comment.
Source cover photo: https://unsplash.com/@nirzar
