Agile Methodology

What it is

Agile is a set of values for planning work under uncertainty: short iterations, working software as the measure of progress, and a deliberate willingness to change direction when what you learn contradicts the plan. It is not a ceremony list, and it does not require any particular tool.

Why it matters

The alternative is a plan made when you knew least, defended after you knew more. Agile accepts the cost of re-planning as cheaper than the cost of finishing the wrong thing, and it makes progress visible as software that runs rather than documents that describe software that might. The failure mode is equally real: renamed meetings, unchanged behaviour. A team that says it is agile while shipping every six months and treating estimates as commitments has kept the vocabulary and dropped the values.

In this track

1. Values and principles (04-product-process/02-agile-methodology/01-values-and-principles) — the four values and what each one trades away.
2. Short iterations and feedback (04-product-process/02-agile-methodology/02-short-iterations-and-feedback) — why the iteration length is the design decision that makes the values real.

Prerequisites

None.

Go deeper

• Scrum (Software Development) (04-product-process/10-scrum-software-development) — one common framework built on these values, with its roles and ceremonies.
• Kanban (04-product-process/11-kanban) — the flow-based alternative, with fewer meetings.
• User Story (04-product-process/12-user-story) — the unit of planning most agile teams use.
• Agile Software Development (04-product-process/09-agile-software-development) — what these values look like inside one engineering team.