What is Agile?
Understanding the Agile methodology
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Key Takeaways
- Agile is a flexible, iterative approach to project management that emphasizes collaboration, continuous delivery, and adaptability.
- The Agile methodology values people, customer feedback, and working solutions over rigid processes and documentation.
- Teams tailor Agile practices to their needs, blending frameworks like Scrum and Kanban for optimal results.
- Experiment with Agile practices and regularly review their effectiveness to foster continuous improvement and team collaboration.
What is the Agile methodology?
The Agile methodology is an approach that divides work into phases, emphasizing continuous delivery and improvement. Agile benefits teams by enabling adaptive planning, rapid execution, and ongoing evaluation, leading to more responsive and successful outcomes.
The Agile methodology was originally developed from the Agile Manifesto in 2001. Since then, several Agile frameworks emerged, including Scrum, Kanban, Lean, and Extreme Programming (XP).
The original Agile Manifesto didn't prescribe two-week iterations or an ideal team size. It laid out a set of core values that put people first.
How is Agile evolving with AI?
More than 25 years later, Agile continues to evolve with the integration of AI and agentic engineering. This empowers Agile teams to automate workflows, enhance decision-making, and drive continuous improvement.
While the project manager or product owner typically prioritizes the work to be delivered, the team takes the lead on deciding how the work will get done by self-organizing around granular tasks and assignments. Agile isn't defined by a set of ceremonies or specific development techniques.
Instead, Agile is a group of methodologies that demonstrate a commitment to tight feedback cycles and continuous improvement. For example, the traditional waterfall methodology has each team work on a project separately, then hand it off to the next group.
However, Agile utilizes collaborative, cross-functional teams to emphasize open communication, teamwork, adaptability, and trust. Your teams' workflow depends on these factors, which is why having a detailed, transparent view into your process will help everyone.
Whether you follow Scrum by the book, blend elements of Kanban and XP, or prioritize an agentic engineering approach, it’s entirely up to you and your team to adapt whatever best supports your goals and ways of working.
Why choose Agile?
Teams choose Agile methodologies to respond to changes in the marketplace or customer feedback quickly. This helps teams prevent derailing a year's worth of plans by shipping in small, frequent increments with a “just enough planning” mindset.
This allows your team gather feedback on each change and integrate it into future plans at minimal cost. With the addition of AI-powered tools and agentic systems, teams respond to change more effectively by providing real-time insights and automating routine processes.
The Agile mindset requires human interactions
However, it's not just a numbers game. It's about people. Even with AI agents, these systems should work alongside workers. And this mirrors the original principles of the Agile Manifesto that authentic human interactions are more important than rigid processes.
Instead, collaborating with customers and teammates should be more meaningful than predefined arrangements. It’s not all about providing hyper-detailed documentation, but delivering a working solution to the customer's problem.
An Agile team unites under a shared vision, then brings it to life the way they know is best. Each team sets its own standards for quality, usability, and completeness.
Their definition of 'done' then informs how quickly they'll churn out the work. Although it can be scary at first, company leaders find that when they put their trust in an Agile team, that team feels a greater sense of ownership and rises to meet (or exceed) expectations.
How to adapt Agile frameworks to your team
Each Agile framework embodies the core principles of frequent iteration, continuous learning, and high quality. Choosing the right framework depends on your team’s needs.
For example, Scrum and XP are popular with software development, while Kanban is often used by Agile marketing and service-oriented teams like IT or HR.
Many Agile teams blend practices from different project management methodologies or frameworks. Teams adopt rituals such as stand-ups, retros, and backlogs, or developing new approaches with AI agents to automate tasks and drive continuous improvement.
With AI project management tools, teams automate routine work, spot project bottlenecks, and gain real-time insights—making it easier to adapt strategies and optimize performance on the fly.
Atlassian’s stance on Agile
The way each team practices Agile should be unique to their needs and culture. No two teams inside Atlassian have identical workflows.
While many organize work in Scrum sprints, estimate in story points, and prioritize backlogs, we’re not strict followers of any single methodology. We believe every team should have access features to help you work in your framework.
Your team should have the autonomy to choose the practices that make them most effective, and we encourage you to do the same. Atlassian also emphasizes human-in-the-loop practices.
AI shouldn’t replace Agile teams, but should help them pull context across projects, departments, and code. This combination makes it easier to make informed decisions.
Ultimately, the key to Agile is a mindset of continuous improvement. Experiment with different practices, discuss them openly, and keep what works for your team.
Want to find out more? Check out our in-depth Jira Agile tutorials to learn how to put these practices into place with Jira. Or get started for free today!
Agile Frequently Asked Questions
What are the 5 C's of Agile?
The 5 C's of Agile are:
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Commitment
- Customer
- Continuous Improvement
These principles emphasize open communication, teamwork, and dedication to goals. They also prioritize a customer-centric approach and ongoing reflection to enhance processes.
Together, they guide Agile teams in delivering value efficiently and adapting to change.
What are the benefits of Agile?
Agile enables teams to adapt quickly to change, deliver value in small increments, and continuously improve. This approach leads to faster feedback, better collaboration, and more successful project outcomes.
What are the core Values of the Agile Manifesto?
The core values of the Agile Manifesto are:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
These values emphasize people, collaboration, and adaptability.
What are the common agile frameworks?
Common Agile frameworks include Scrum, Kanban, Lean, and Extreme Programming (XP). Each framework supports frequent iteration, continuous learning, and high quality in its own way.
Where to find multi-user editable templates for Agile workflows?
You can find multi-user editable templates for agile workflows in the Jira template library. These templates are designed for Agile teams and can be edited to fit your team's unique ways of working.
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