Individual interactions over process and tools
Working software rather than thorough documentation
Collaboration with customer instead of contract negotiations
More than following a plan, respond to change.
Those are the 4 Agile values.
They reflect that planning & documentation having become less valuable than talking and doing. You still need the former, but not as much.
It might sound crazy, but in the world of software people overplan and try to plan things that can't/shouldn't be planned.
A few simple tools, and collaboration with the team fixes a lot of this. The model is so successful they are now rolling it out to non-software business. This is a good thing for people because:
- it empowers workers
- it focuses work on what is valuable to customers
- it is more productive
Those who think it's just management doublespeak haven't seen it, and have become jaded from working their entire lives with stuffed shirts who believe that manager is a title, like 'Lord', and not a bundle of skills....