Agile Working Is More Than Just Being Agile
Agile working is often described as the ability to respond quickly to change. The word Agile itself suggests movement, flexibility and adaptability. But Agile working is about much more than simply being able to change direction when circumstances change. It is about creating an environment in which people can work together effectively, deliver value continuously and respond intelligently to new information. For many organizations, Agile and traditional project management are still presented as opposites. Agile is seen as flexible, experimental and people focused, while traditional project management is often associated with structure, planning, governance and control. This creates an unnecessary choice. Organizations do not have to choose between Agile and structured project management. In fact, Agile ways of working can work extremely well alongside PRINCE2. The real question is not whether a project should be Agile or traditional. The better question is which elements of each approach will help the organization achieve the desired outcome.
Susaan Demers-Ghajar
8/19/20266 min read
Why Agile Working Matters
Organizations operate in an environment where change is constant. Customer expectations change, technology develops, regulations evolve and new competitors appear. Even the most carefully prepared business case can be affected by information that was not available when the project started.
This is where Agile working becomes valuable. Agile encourages teams to work in shorter cycles, learn from experience and use feedback to improve what they are delivering. Instead of assuming that everything can be understood and planned at the beginning of a project, Agile recognizes that knowledge develops as the work progresses.
This is an important distinction. A project team may begin with a clear business objective, but that does not necessarily mean that every requirement is already known. Customers may discover new needs once they see an early version of a product. Employees may identify practical problems that were invisible during the design phase. Technology may create opportunities that were not originally considered.
Agile gives teams a structured way to respond to this reality. It encourages transparency because people need to understand what is happening. It encourages inspection because teams need to regularly evaluate progress and results. Most importantly, it encourages adaptation because learning has little value if nothing changes as a result.
Agile therefore is not simply about moving faster. Sometimes the most Agile decision is to slow down, investigate a problem and change direction before significant resources are wasted.
PRINCE2 Provides Valuable Structure
PRINCE2 approaches projects from a different perspective. It provides a strong framework for governance, decision making, accountability and business justification. It helps organizations understand why a project exists, who is responsible for decisions and how progress should be monitored.
These elements remain valuable in an Agile environment. An Agile team may be perfectly capable of organizing its daily work, prioritizing tasks and delivering increments of value. However, the organization still needs to understand whether the project remains aligned with its strategic objectives. Someone still needs to make investment decisions. Risks still need to be managed. Responsibilities still need to be clear.
This is where PRINCE2 can provide an excellent foundation. PRINCE2 does not have to determine every detail of how the team performs its work. Instead, it can establish the governance framework within which an Agile team operates. Think of it as creating the boundaries of the journey while allowing the team to determine the best route within those boundaries.
The project can have a clear business justification, defined responsibilities, agreed tolerances and appropriate controls. Within that structure, the delivery team can use Agile practices to determine how the work should be organized and delivered. This combination can provide both stability and flexibility.
Governance Does Not Have to Mean Bureaucracy
One of the biggest misunderstandings about structured project management is that governance automatically creates bureaucracy. It does not. Good governance should help people make better decisions. It should provide clarity rather than create unnecessary administration. Imagine an organization investing a significant amount of money in a digital transformation project. Senior management needs to know whether the investment continues to make sense. They need visibility of progress, major risks, expected benefits and significant changes in direction.
An Agile team can provide much of this information through demonstrations, reviews, metrics and regular feedback. PRINCE2 can provide the governance structure that determines when decisions need to be made and who has the authority to make them.
The two approaches can therefore complement each other. The mistake is to impose traditional controls on every detail of Agile delivery. If a team needs approval for every small adjustment, the organization has removed much of the flexibility that Agile was intended to provide. Effective governance focuses on the decisions that matter.
Agile Does Not Mean No Planning
Another common misconception is that Agile teams do not plan. They do. The difference is that Agile planning recognizes that plans are based on knowledge available at a particular moment. As new information becomes available, the plan may need to change. This is not a failure of planning. It is a realistic response to uncertainty.
PRINCE2 can support this very well. A project can have a clear overall direction, business case and set of objectives while allowing detailed delivery plans to evolve. For example, an organization may know that it wants to introduce a new customer portal. The strategic objective may be clear, the investment may be approved and the expected benefits may be defined. However, the precise functionality that customers will value most may only become clear after users interact with early versions.
An Agile approach allows the team to learn from that interaction. PRINCE2 provides the framework for ensuring that those changes remain connected to the business case.
The Human Side of Agile
Agile is sometimes reduced to frameworks, ceremonies, boards and terminology. Scrum, Kanban, backlogs, sprints and reviews are useful tools, but they are not the essence of Agile working. The real foundation is people. Agile requires collaboration, trust, transparency and communication. A team needs to feel safe enough to identify problems rather than hide them. People need to be willing to challenge assumptions. Leaders need to listen to information that may not confirm what they hoped to hear.
This is particularly important when Agile is combined with PRINCE2. A governance structure can provide accountability, but accountability should not become blame. A project board should ask difficult questions, but those questions should create insight rather than fear. When leaders create an environment in which problems can be discussed openly, both Agile delivery and project governance become stronger.
Combining the Two Approaches in Practice
A practical combination might look quite simple. PRINCE2 can establish the project environment, including the business case, project objectives, governance responsibilities, risk management approach and decision making structure. The Agile delivery team can then work within that environment using iterative delivery, prioritization, regular feedback and continuous improvement.
The Product Owner can focus on maximizing value and maintaining priorities. The Agile team can determine how best to deliver the agreed outcomes. The project leadership can focus on whether the project remains viable and aligned with organizational objectives.
Regular reviews create opportunities to inspect both progress and direction. If the team discovers that a particular feature does not provide the expected value, it can recommend a change. If new information creates a better opportunity, priorities can be reconsidered. If risks increase beyond agreed tolerances, the appropriate governance level can become involved.
This creates a powerful balance. The organization retains control of the important decisions without controlling every task.
Agile Is a Mindset, Not a Label
Perhaps the most important lesson is that Agile should not become another organizational label. Calling a team Agile does not automatically make it Agile. A team can hold daily meetings, use a backlog and work in short iterations while still operating in a completely rigid environment. If people are afraid to raise concerns, if decisions are always made at the top and if feedback is ignored, the organization is not truly working in an Agile way.
Agile working requires a willingness to learn. It requires leaders to accept that the original plan may not always be the best plan. It requires teams to take responsibility for outcomes rather than simply completing tasks. It requires stakeholders to participate rather than simply wait for a final result.
This is why Agile working is more than being flexible. It is about creating the ability to learn, respond and deliver meaningful value.
Finding the Right Balance
The most successful organizations are often not the ones that follow a methodology most strictly. They are the ones that understand why different approaches exist and use them intelligently. PRINCE2 can provide the structure needed for responsible project management. Agile can provide the flexibility needed for effective delivery in an uncertain environment.
Together, they can create a project approach that is both controlled and adaptable. The goal should never be to choose Agile because it is fashionable or PRINCE2 because it is familiar. The goal should be to create the conditions in which people can deliver the right outcomes, manage uncertainty and make informed decisions.
Agile working is therefore not about abandoning structure. It is about using structure intelligently. It is not about having no plan. It is about understanding that a plan should support the outcome rather than become more important than the outcome. And it is certainly not about simply being able to move quickly.
True Agile working means being able to move in the right direction, learn along the way and change course when the evidence tells you that another path will create more value. That is where Agile and PRINCE2 can meet. Not as competing methodologies, but as complementary ways of helping organizations turn ideas into valuable results.
Continue the Journey with Agile in the Swiss Alps
Agile is not something you simply learn from a framework. It is something you experience, practice and discover along the way. That is exactly the idea behind Agile in the Swiss Alps, an inspiring eBook that takes you on a multi day journey through the Swiss mountains with an Agile team. Also available in Dutch and German.
Led by Christine, their Scrum Master, and Patrick, their Product Owner, the team discovers what Agile really means when the path becomes challenging, the weather changes and unexpected obstacles appear. Through this engaging metaphor, transparency, inspection, adaptation, collaboration and trust become more than theoretical concepts. They become practical lessons that you can recognize in your own organization.
Agile in the Swiss Alps is part of the broader Human Centered Change Method™, developed by Susaan Demers- Ghajar. This approach brings together Agile, Lean, Project Management and essential human skills, with people at the heart of sustainable change.
Would you like to explore Agile in a different way and discover how these principles can strengthen your own team or organization?
Visit www.susaanconsulting.com and discover Agile in the Swiss Alps, The Human Centered Change Method™ and a growing collection of eBooks, eCourses and practical tools designed to help you make change more human, meaningful and successful.