What is Agile, and why is it so different in every conversation?

Agility is attempting to bring more flexibility and efficiency to an organization, often in their traditional delivery environment. This is achieved by implementing tools and techniques taken from Agile methodologies. For example, adding sprints in a traditional environment is a Hybrid approach, a type of agility. This can be applied across the organisations, from delivery environments (e.g. in an Agile PMO), marketing, to increasing efficiencies at the exec level.

An agile mindset takes the principles which broadly underpin Agile methodologies and applies them, whether they are in an Agile delivery environment or not. The principles broadly referred to are ‘continuous improvement’, ‘collaboration’, ‘adapting to change’, ‘focusing on delivering value’, ‘respect’ and ‘taking ownership of the delivery’.

Hybrid, also referred to “Adaptive” or “Bimodal” from Gartner, refers to an environment that contains both traditionally managed projects and programs, as well as Agile ones. It also covers how to manage the interface between them. This is an important challenge for businesses to handle, and whilst it is not Agile it often accompanies the conversation and can be confused.

Given the range of topics it covers, it becomes clear why there is so much confusion surrounding it. To ensure understanding and clarity of communication when referring to ‘Agile’, the context must be clearly defined to ensure all is understood. There are sufficient differences in terminology and approaches between the methodologies and approaches to introduce confusion through different meanings. As an example, the ‘Epic’ referred to in Scrum is different to the ‘Epic’ referred to in SAFe.

To understand the approach that is being referenced you must know the environment it is used in (what level of PPM structure, or even whether it’s in a delivery structure) and how it is being applied. To define the optimal approach, the environment and application must still be understood, with the addition of any organizational constraints that apply.

It should now be clear what ‘Agile’ can refer to, and how to work out which ‘Agile’ is being spoken about. To fully understand how to best utilise Agile in an end to end context however, a deeper understanding is needed of each of the areas to devise the best approach.