Characteristics of Agile Frameworks

The 7 Principles of Agile Business Analysis describe how Agile operates. But there’s another way to look at it. When you see an Agile environment, what are the characteristics of that environment? How can you look in from the outside and say, “That looks like they’re doing some flavor of Agile?”

Examples of Agile Frameworks

Because of the dominance of Scrum, I often hear the terms Agile and Scrum used as if they are the same thing. Agile is not the same as Scrum. It is not a single framework. It is not prescriptive the way a framework is. An organization could apply any framework, such as Lean, Rational, Six Sigma, and of course Scrum, and would still be Agile. Also, some of those frameworks tend to focus on the development horizon only. Agile, as we’ve already discussed here, can be applied well before development.

• First, there’s an emphasis on respecting all of the team members and their creativity.
• You can see that feedback and learning is greatly valued to guide the delivery of the highest-valued work first.
• Collaboration and communication is a core priority, not just on the team, but all stakeholders, to have a shared understanding.
• Work is divided into small chunks. Working, functional outputs are delivered on a regular iterative schedule.

When you look at the list of Agile frameworks from above, and I claim that as a representative but not an exhaustive list, each of them demonstrates the four characteristics.

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