What is Agile?

The term Agile has joined the ranks of corporate buzz-words that means both everything and nothing at once. For many people, the word “Agile” conjures up a wide web of methodologies, frameworks, and rules – leaving them unsure of its true worth. The value and driving force behind the framework’s global popularity hinges on the ability to empower continuous change while focusing on work that delivers value. Agile prioritizes transparency and continuous improvement ahead of predictability, which helps ensure customer needs are prioritized effectively.

The Importance of an Agile Management Approach

At its core, Agile is a fundamental shift in management. An Agile management approach becomes demonstrably more efficient and responsive to customer needs than traditional management. Effective use of this framework implies a holistic change in culture, structure, and leadership roles which often makes Agile difficult for organizations to grasp. Agile is not a methodology that can succeed simply as an add-on to existing processes.

Agile is often characterized as a movement for this exact reason. It’s not just a framework or a mindset, but rather implies a new way of thinking. Teams work in synchronization. Work is done by everyone, together, continuously. Much of what has already been written on Agile focuses on processes, tools, and methodologies, but as the Agile Manifesto states: “while things are important, people are more important.” Without regarding Agile as an all-encompassing movement for an organization, tools and processes achieve little.

Leaders who use an Agile management approach spend less time reviewing their team’s work and instead add value by adapting corporate strategies, spending time with customers, and by mentoring and coaching their team. This significant restructuring can be a challenging change to embrace, but ultimately facilitates more valuable and longer-lasting returns.

Agile at Chainbridge Solutions

We focus on the value added by Agile through:

• Motivated, autonomous teams. We build projects around motivated individuals and give our teams higher autonomy. Teams are able to self-organize with broad parameters of control and responsibility for for their own decisions and collaboration.
• Frequent iteration. The key to Agile is a narrow feedback loop with stakeholders to facilitate cheaper, more frequent, and faster failure. Discoveries are continuously made and teams can react quickly.
• People-focused processes. We understand that success is more a product of the people than the process. Our team utilizes Agile to remove friction, giving teams the support they need to do their best work, and trusting them to get the job done.
• Team collaboration. Ongoing, transparent, collaborative conversations are more valuable than top-down directives. We conduct Agile ceremonies to improve communication with one another.
• Group ownership and feedback. We know group ownership of process is key to a productive Agile team dynamic. Our approach creates a space for teams to reflect and provide feedback where we can evaluate processes and methodologies, then adjust.

Agile has better attuned us to the needs of customers, helped our team deliver concrete results on defined timelines, and facilitated higher quality products.

About Chainbridge Solutions Inc.

Chainbridge Solutions Inc. is an SBA 8(a) certified, woman-owned small business building automated workflow solutions for the Federal Government and private sector using Low Code Application Platforms. They specialize in legacy application modernization through an agile methodology focused on human-centric design, strong customer engagement, and rapid delivery of results. Chainbridge Solutions brings recognized expertise in the Human Capital, Personnel Security, and Investigative domains. Leveraging emerging technologies such as machine learning and robotic process automation, Chainbridge Solutions delivers smart, measurable, innovative solutions that offer business automation, optimized workflow, improved customer experiences, and overall cost savings and efficiencies.