AGILITY: THE MANY DOMAINS OF AGILE
The publication of the Agile Manifesto officially launched the discipline of Agile Software Development although many of its core practices can be traced back to the 1960s. As an experienced software engineer, I think the founders of Agile deserve great credit for the systematic Agile packaging and terminology they created rather than for inventing the underpinning practices of Agile (which to be fair, they never claimed).
The practices and terminology of Agile are now being widely applied to the building of non-software products (Agile Product Development) which in the spirit of Agile, can also encompass the promotion/adoption of these products to/by their B2B customer (or B2C consumer) communities.
In addition some key practices within Agile, such as Agile Leadership and Agile Teams, are seen as valuable disciplines in themselves within organisations.
Finally some businesses are now applying Agility to transform their enterprises as a whole (Business Agility / The Agile Enterprise).
MANY DOMAINS BUT ONE SET OF VALUES
The common theme is that these different “domains” of Agile all share the same set of 4 underpinning values:
- Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools
- Working Solutions over comprehensive documentation
- Customer Collaboration over contracts and specifications
- Responding to Change over following a plan
Source: agilemanifesto.org
