Agile is a descriptive term for a number of project development and management techniques and methods. Agile project management is an empirical project management approach. In other words, you do something in practice and adjust your approach based on experience rather than theory.
Agile development methods focus on
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Development within multiple iterations, called iterative development
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Emphasis on simplicity, transparency, and situation-specific strategies
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Cross-functional, self-organizing teams
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A working product or software as the measure of progress
The empirical approach of agile management projects promote
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Transparency: Everyone involved in the process understands and can contribute to the development of the process.
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Inspection: The inspector must inspect the product regularly and possess the skills to identify variances from acceptance criteria.
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Adaptation: The development team must be able to adjust quickly to minimize further product deviations.
Initially applied exclusively to software development, agile methodologies didn’t arise out of nothing. The concepts have historical precedents, some of which have origins outside software development, which isn’t surprising, given that software development hasn’t been around for that long in the history of human events.