Agile for Everybody

Chapter 6. Agile Means That We Follow All Three of These Guiding Principles to Be Fast, Flexible, and Customer-First

The three guiding principles we have covered so far capture three concepts that are at the very heart of what makes Agile such a powerful movement: customer centricity, collaboration, and openness to change.  Committing to any one of these three guiding principles can make an immediate difference for any team or organization looking to work with, not against, the realities of a fast-changing world. But the real magic happens when these three principles are applied together to create a harmonious cycle of learning, collaborating, and delivering.

As this cycle gains momentum, so too does the belief that real change is possible. The alchemical union of principles and practices at the heart of Agile provides teams not just with a new way of working, but with the permission to ask why they are working a certain way—often for the first time. As teams take more ownership over the way that they work, they become more comfortable challenging the fundamental beliefs and expectations that have allowed “business as usual” to persist through prior attempts at organizational change.

Creating space for meaningful, sustainable, and ongoing change means accepting the fact that there is no single framework or set of practices that will lead every organization to guaranteed success. ...