Agile Techniques have been used for at least several decades. The Agile Manifesto expressed definitive values and principles. Today’s environment is disrupted by exponential advances in technology and demands from customers for immediate delivery of value. Agile techniques and approaches effectively manage disruptive technologies. The first principle of agile places customer satisfaction as the highest priority. Rapid and transparent customer feedback loops are available with the widespread use of social media. Therefore, to stay competitive and relevant, organizations can no longer be internally focused but rather need to focus outwardly to the customer experience. High-uncertainty projects have high rates of change, complexity, and risk. This can present problems for traditional predictive approaches since requirements are determined upfront and changes are controlled through a change request process. Agile approaches were created to explore feasibility in short cycles and quickly adapt based on evaluation and feedback.
Agile is a blanket term for many approaches. Agile and the Kanban Method are considered descendants of lean thinking. They have a shared heritage: focus on delivering value, respect for people, minimizing waste, being transparent, adapting to change, and continuously improving. Kanban method is less prescriptive and disruptive than some other agile approaches. Most common blends of agile approaches in use consists of the Scrum framework, the Kanban Method, and elements of the eXtreme Programming (XP) method.
As project uncertainty increases, so does also the risk of rework and the need to use a different approach. In order to tackle projects with high amounts of uncertainty, teams select life cycles. Delivering small increments, teams are better able to understand the true customer requirements than with a static written specification. Iterative and incremental approaches use very short feedback loops, frequent adaptation, regularly updated plans, and frequent delivery. They work well for projects that involve novel tools, techniques, materials, or application domains, require research and development, have high rates of change, have unclear or unknown requirements, uncertainty, or risk, and have a final goal that is hard to describe.
