Agile Frameworks and Methodologies
Mindset Before Mechanics
Agile rests on four values - individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan - plus twelve principles. The items on the right still matter; the items on the left are valued more. Agile delivery is iterative and incremental and relies on empirical process control: transparency, inspection, and adaptation. Predictive approaches fit stable, well-understood scope; agile fits high uncertainty and evolving requirements; hybrid blends both.
Scrum
Scrum has three accountabilities - Product Owner (maximizes value and orders the backlog), Scrum Master (coaches, facilitates, removes impediments), and Developers (self-managing, deliver the increment) - five events (Sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective), and three artifacts (Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Increment) with commitments. Traps: the Scrum Master is not a project manager and does not assign work; the Product Owner, not the team or stakeholders, orders the backlog; scope changes mid-Sprint are negotiated with the Product Owner rather than imposed.
Kanban, XP, and Scaling
Kanban visualizes flow, limits work in progress, and manages queues; it requires no iterations. Extreme Programming emphasizes engineering practices such as test-driven development, pair programming, and continuous integration. Scaling frameworks such as SAFe coordinate many teams. Estimation is relative - story points, planning poker, t-shirt sizing - because people compare better than they estimate absolutely.
Rule of thumb: velocity is the average story points completed per Sprint against the Definition of Done. It is a planning tool, never a performance target.
Worked example: Velocity is 20 points per Sprint and 90 points remain. 90 ÷ 20 = 4.5, so plan for five Sprints and re-inspect.