Agile Methodologies

Agile methodologies are the project frameworks that put the values of the Agile Manifesto into practice. The work is cut into short iterations that each end with something usable. After each one, the team revises the plan based on user feedback. They are usually contrasted with the waterfall model, where a project goes through specification, design, build and testing in sequence and the client discovers the result at the end.

The main agile methodologies

• Scrum organizes the work in sprints of one month or less, often two weeks. A product owner sets the backlog priorities, a scrum master looks after the process, and the team holds a daily meeting, a sprint review and a retrospective. The software developers Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland first presented it in 1995.
• Kanban displays the work on a board of columns and limits the number of tasks in progress at each stage. It takes its name and its principle from the cards of the Toyota Production System.
• Extreme Programming (XP), formalized by the American software engineer Kent Beck in the late 1990s, centres on engineering practices such as pair programming, tests written before the code and continuous integration.
• SAFe and LeSS extend these methods to several teams working on the same product.

What they have in common

Every agile methodology rests on a short loop: plan a small batch of work, deliver it, review the result with the people who will use it, then decide what comes next.

These methods come from software development and are now used by marketing, HR and product teams too. They organize how a team delivers. Who decides what, and how roles evolve as the team grows, are governance questions the organization settles separately.