In today’s workplace, organizations are finding more value in project managers because more projects are started and supported every year. With this heightened sense of awareness and understanding of project management methods and efficacy, business agility has also become more important in comparison to traditional ways of managing projects. The older methods give way to bottlenecks and hold in their processes. Traditional practices can often get bogged down when projects become too large; whereas iterative and predictive methodologies can nest and delineate further. Agile methodology and other predictive and iterative methodologies are starting to gain more of a presence in the workplace allowing for these organizations to better meet project goals, budgets, and schedules. (Pulse of the Profession)
When looking at Agile adoption within the workplace, it is clear that Agile has grown and is continuing to grow in practice and perception. According to the 2018 Pulse of the Profession Survey, “71% of organizations report greater agility over the last five years. More and more organizations are recognizing that agility – the capability to quickly sense and adapt to external and internal changes to deliver relevant results in a productive and cost-effective manner – is helping them stay competitive.” Continuing to narrow our focus even further, in the 12thAnnual State of Agile Report, on those who have adopted agile,"25% of the respondents say that all or almost all of their teams are agile, whereas only 8% reported that in 2016."
As I was researching the agile space, and those who have adopted the agile methodologies, I noticed five key areas where agile made a significant improvement: Managing changing priorities, Project visibility, Business/IT alignment, Delivery speed/Time to market, and Team productivity. (State of Agile Report)
Not only have organizations bettered their practices but they have also shifted their metrics to focus more on customer/user satisfaction, which is valued higher when measuring success for agile projects and tasks. Agile is a big proponent of customer/user satisfaction and the use of teams to produce the best product in the long run. Agile may be seen as a buzzword and the term is at risk of being perceived as a trend or gimmick. However, with consistent practices, internal agile coaches, and agile tools across teams, an organization that is ready to adopt a new project methodology can reap the rewards.
In conclusion, Agile has come a long way from the beginning of the Agile Manifesto. Finding the right form of Agile, whether it is Scrum, XP, Kanban, etc., these practices are becoming the future and success of software delivery. (techbeacon) With a growing customer-centric and user satisfaction-focused strategy in the workplace, we can expect to see more agile and other predictive, iterative, and hybrid methodologies at all levels of management. Even though some organizations are still choosing more traditional methods of project management, Agile has come a long way and is slowly making its way into the workplace and finding more advocates and adopters every year.