How Agile Supports Change

Agile methodologies are designed to handle change easily, which is why they’re called -er- agile! Most aspects of agile work can change without causing problems. But a couple of things are best left alone. Here’s what you can and shouldn’t change when working in an agile environment: 

Priority.  At the beginning of each sprint, the team reviews and re-prioritizes the stories in the backlog.  So you can change priority at the beginning of every sprint.  When stories are completed, stakeholders learn from using the functions that were produced. That can lead to re-prioritization of what’s in the backlog. The same goes when new business challenges arise and benefits of functions are understood. One constraint on re-prioritization is that the priority changes must comply with technical practicalities and logical business sequences. For example, you can’t build a balance sheet until you can process revenue and expenses!

Schedule. When you review the functional backlog, you can adjust the schedule by moving functions the business needs or wants into upcoming sprints. You need accurate estimates of effort to reschedule work. Developers learn as they produce functions, so they can estimate effort more accurately as the project progresses.

Scope. New scope ideas often crop up after a few functions are produced. Scope changes are expected with agile approaches. However, scope changes often involve trade-offs. For example, you might negotiate budget and time. And you might drop existing scope to make room for new and important functions.

Deadlines. In agile projects, people are usually assigned for a pre-determined amount of time. For that reason, scope becomes the variable. As you talk with the team about scope changes or reprioritizations, you can adjust sprints to change deadlines for specific functions. The overall project deadline can even be changed — if the whole team is still available.

What Doesn’t Change in Agile

Don’t count on changing cadence or personnel! Building your agile team and setting a sprint schedule — and sticking to them — are important for the success of an agile project. A big benefit of agile is what is learned along the way. Changing the people on the team upsets that learning and reduces the benefits you achieve. Changing the sprint cadence can also be disruptive. Schedules are built around focused sprint meetings and activities. Changing the schedule can throw the team off their rhythm and mess up existing estimates and sprint plans.

For more on agile, check out the Become an Agile Project Manager learning path.

Do you have any stories about how you’ve changed aspects of your agile projects? What worked? What didn’t? Share with us in the comments section.

Coming Up

My updated Project Management Foundations course is so close! I reviewed all the movies, so we’re down to a few last corrections. I clarified things that were confusing or unclear in the 2019 edition. Feeling good about this latest update.

October will be a big month of Office Hours. Keep a lookout for announcements as I nail down the details with my co-hosts.