It’s been a few years that we hear a lot about agile management. Since the begining of the COVID pandemy and the standardization of remote working, this approach of management has been considered as a solution.
But what is exactly Agile Management ?
The Concept of Agile Management
Created in the late 90’s, a few years after the begining of computer science, the Agile Management is today very popular in a wide range of sectors. This approach gives a big importance to flexibility, adaptability and quick decision making. By following those principles, the team is increasing its productivity and make sure to solve every problems during the project.
There are different approachs to Agile Management like Kanban, XP (Extreme Programming) or Scrum (which is probably the most used today).
The Agile Manifesto
In 2001, a team composed of developers and specialistes wrote the Agile Manifesto to make sure that people understand the concept and replicate it correctly in their company. This document is a summary of the big principles and values of this approach.
Therefore, agile management is supposed to focus on :
- individuals and their interactions instead of processus and tools ;
- the product instead of long documentation
- collaborating with the clients before negociating the contracts
- Adaptability instead of just following the plan
The ideas articulates around 12 principales :
- Prioritizing client’s satisfaction by quickly delivering important features
- Welcoming client’s ideas, changes and needs at all time
- Working in short cycles in order to frequently deliver new versions of the project
- Team members have to work all together and with users during the whole project
- Team must be motivated and be trusted to be supported during the project
- Face to face communication is prefered
- the product itself is the best way to measure progression
- The team has to make sure that the project keep evolving on the long run
- Be focused on every details of the project and make sure the product is well designed with excellent coding skills
- Avoid useless work
- The best results come from auto-managed team
- The team is supposed to think about ways to improve productivity during the whole project and must adjust the management approach