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8 tips to make agile values flourish in your business.

Have you ever had the pleasure of working on a perfectly preplanned and controled project? New insights everyday, different needs all the time and unrealistic expectations. In fact, you're adjusting the planning almost constantly. What kind of steering power does a schedule offer if you adjust it non-stop? What security does that offer you? You have to control the entire project. You have to be up to date on everything at the same time. These days you have to be more and more agile in responding to changes. I feel your pain! Follow these 8 tips and make an easier transition to agile!

Classically, you have project methodologies such as Prince 2 or PMBOK. Prince 2 is the abbreviation for projects in controlled environments and is a set of processes and instructions to run a project from A to Z in a completely structured and documented way. PMBOK stands for project management body of knowledge and is also a methodology for delivering structured and pre-planned output. Planning is done in advance when a new phase of the project is being prepared. If changes are needed afterwards, this is considered expensive. Agile and traditional project methodologies may differ day and night in their approach, but they both want to deliver output.

The difference is that agile starts from 4 values and 12 principles, not from a set of processes. After all, processes and tools are just tools to make people work together in the best possible way, not the other way around, right? If you apply this well, output is delivered frequently and first the output that adds the most value for the customer is delivered. That customer may, by the way, change his mind in the meantime. With agile you just adapt to that. Surely you are not going to hold your customer responsible for what he thought at the beginning of the project? By actively working together with the customer, you can deliver truly customized solutions that fully meet his needs. Agile also abandons the idea that the project leader is responsible for the entire project and therefore has to assign and manage all tasks, serves as the only contact point,...

4 agile values

Value individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Value working software  over comprehensive documentation

Value customer collaboration  over contract negotiation

Value responding to change  over following a plan

12 agile principles

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.

3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.


5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.

8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.


9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

10. Implicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.

11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.



These are very different principles than in traditional project management, aren't they? It is therefore not easy to apply agile in a company that is not used to working agile. All kinds of habits and agreements have been made to make traditional projects as successful as possible. These habits and agreements are often completely ingrained. So you can't just throw them overboard and say that from now on we will work agile.

With these 8 tips you can successfully make the transition from a traditional project approach to agile.

  • Start with one project and preferably with a part of that project.

  • If the executives only express their commitment in words, but do something different in actions, the employees will mostly follow the actual example of their supervisor. As with a change trajectory, you need sponsors who actively and visibly propagate the change.
  • Be alert to dynamics that can lead to reverting to classic recipes or serving up a classic recipe with an agile sauce. A well-known mistake is to simply give classic job titles an agile name or to keep on assigning tasks to people.

  • The important thing is that people have a good idea of exactly what agile is. They need to have a good understanding of what it entails, what is different and what problems it solves.

  • Make them want to start working with agile by making the benefits of agile clear to employees and the organization. Once they know what's in it for them, they join in.

  • Provide clear information. This will ensure that people have the necessary knowledge to give it a shot.
  • Don't forget this the executives.
  • It's easier to forget something if you only heard it once. Harness the power of repetition, especially if you want to break habits.

  • Ability is key.
  • Again, don't forget the leaders to celebrate the successes. Everyone likes to be a part of success. It gives courage and confidence.
  • Above all, learn from what doesn't work. Be open about that and see together how you can find a solution for it in the context of your organization.

  • Extend the approach to the rest of the project or to other projects.
  • Don't forget to let go yourself. If you are successful then the team no longer needs you to keep them on track. They can do that themselves.

  • What is crucial is that people live the four values. These must become their values. Bringing them to their attention regularly keeps them reminded. The power of repetition, you know.
  • Take, together with the team, the right initiatives to work better according to the agile principles.



What is the best way to monitor whether the four values are being properly applied? You can question this each time during the learning moments after a sprint. An easy way to get regular feedback is the opinime app. The agile values are provided as statements. All you have to do is add the team members and if you want the executives as well to regularly ask them if they think a statement has been met. You will then immediately see to what extent the group thinks it has been met. That gives you valuable information to provide extra information, coaching, ... so that the values are fulfilled better and better. In doing so, you keep the agile values under the spotlight. This is important because what gets attention grows. By the way, as it should be in agile: you determine together what is needed and what you can do best in what order. And as a bonus, you actively apply principle 12.


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