The Digital Superhero Agile principles

From 2003 to 2025: 22 years later, have the original Agile principles stayed relevant?

 Here's our updated take on the 12 Agile principles. Tailored to help you succeed in digital design projects - superhero style:

1. #CustomerOverClient AND #FrequentDropsOverBigDrop AND #RefineYaShiz
2. #FlexItBaby
3. #FailFastDeliverOften
4. #Overcommunicate
5. #InServiceOfOthers
6. #TalkTalkTalk
7. #ReportingIsFundamental
8. #NoSpikesNoBurnout
9. #BeMoreExcellent
10. #LessIsAlwaysMore
11. PutTheTeaInTeam
12. #AlwaysImproving

The twelve Agile principles

Back in 2003, the founders of Agile decided that 12 principles should underpin every Agile project.

But 2003 was a long time ago. and what worked for dev projects doesn't work for design.

So let's revisit the 12 Agile principles and rewrite the story.

1. “Customer satisfaction through early and continuous delivery of valuable software”

 When we talk about customers here, we’re talking about championing the needs of your clients end customers, the people who actually use the product or service you’re designing.

#CustomerOverClient

Early and continuous delivery is about delivering high-quality design work for the important stuff as soon as possible, chunked into small packages that enable continuous, frequent releases rather than one big drop at the end.

#FrequentDropsOverBigDrop

Often achieving real customer satisfaction means lots of researching, testing and iterating... WITH ACTUAL CUSTOMERS. By taking this approach, your work will drive real change and lead to impressive results, and clients love that.

#RefineYaShiz

2. “Embrace changing requirements, even late in the project”

This one’s about being flexible and adaptable to changing design requirements. The beauty of Agile is that it’s much easier to pivot from one sprint to the next as you can reprioritise your tasks and your backlog each sprint.

#FlexItBaby

3.“Deliver working software frequently, with a preference for shorter timescales.”

This one is all about delivering fast, and delivering often. Make sure work is always being regularly shared. The Design files keep everything open and visible to everyone on the project so any problems can be spotted quickly during Design Review sessions.

#FailFastDeliverOften

4. “Collaborate closely between the development team and business people on a daily basis.”

This one’s really all about communication. Communication happens in your daily standup, your sprint demo meeting, design review meetings, workshops, even offsite meetings and co-creation sessions, etc. These are very different now compared to twenty years ago – you’ve got all the different PM tools, messaging apps and old fashioned email, calls and face to face. Even more reason to be clear on HOW you will all be collaborating.

#Overcommunicate

5.“Build projects around motivated individuals and give them the resources and support they need to get the job done.”

So here, your team is at the core of everything you deliver. You want to be empowering your writers, designers and developers to make decisions and give them autonomy over their work. Don’t be afraid to directly ask them questions like: How can I unblock you today? What do you want from me? Do you have access to the tools you need? What’s going on for you at the moment?

#InServiceOfOthers

6.“Use face-to-face communication as much as possible.”

The world’s changed since 2003 and video conferencing platforms like Teams, Zoom and Skype are the norm now. So while face to face is still great, video meetings are often just as good when teams are based around the world and in different time zones. Encourage everyone to turn on their camera, even if it’s just to say hello and goodbye – it really does help build empathy and friendliness within your team.

#TalkTalkTalk

7.“Working software is the primary measure of progress." 

Here’s another one where I think things have changed a lot since 2003. Yes, working design prototypes are the primary measure of progress in a design project. BUT there are lots of other ways we can measure and report on how a project is going. JIRA has a powerful reporting capability, and if you set it up right it can give you an incredible at-a-glance view of where your project is at: what’s blocked, how much resource has been used, and what’s been delivered successfully. There are valuable dashboards and reports that YOU can generate, to give another view of how a project’s progressing.

#ReportingIsFundamental

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

Pace is a really important part of project work that’s often overlooked. The temptation is to push the team to deliver as fast as possible, all the time, in order to meet or exceed your targets. Then people kick back and relax once the panic is over. This pattern isn’t healthy and it can lead to burnout, arguments and bad decisions. So keep things running at an even pace, even if that means holding back sometimes.

#NoSpikesNoBurnout

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

For me this one is about: How can we drive excellence in the most fun way possible? How can we use tools to gamify the way we respond to the challenges in the brief? It’s also about having a humble and open mindset, being able to criticise your own work, kindly feed back on others’ work, and iterate on multiple versions of designs. Excellence comes in many forms, and as a PM it’s about encouraging and sometimes facilitating these healthy discussions.

#BeMoreExcellent

10.“Simplicity, the art of maximizing the amount of work not done, is essential.” 

This one I would sum up in a few words - don’t boil the ocean. Learn to depriorititise what is not going to move the dial for your client or your team, and don’t be afraid of calling that out. It’s about working smarter, not harder, so the team can do more of the work that really matters.

#LessIsAlwaysMore

11.“The best design architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing design teams. Empower designers to make decisions and collaborate with each other to find the best design solutions.”

 This one’s a bit of a mouthful! Essentially this is about your team and getting the absolute best out of them. Your role is to look after your team like top athletes – give them physio, provide tea and biscuits, wash their kit, whatever it is they need, just do it! A brilliant PM is understanding and sensitive. When you understand your team’s dynamics, you can leverage their skills better, increase their productivity, and ultimately make your team as happy as possible.  At the end of the day, people who like each other work well together and support each other. And that’s your superpower here: empowering others.

#PutTheTeaInTeam

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

The final principle, of course it’s got to be retros! Retros, we all know and love them, but a lot of the time I see them being skipped or cancelled when things get busy. Don’t let that happen! There are lots of different flavours of retros. Team retros. Personal retros. Even real-time retros. This is something that wasn’t even invented way back when the Agile principles came out in 2003. In Slack, I like to set up a retro thread or channel for your team, where you can log any feedback, issues or highlights there and then, when it happens, so it isn’t lost in the mists of time.

#AlwaysImproving

So, we’ve looked through the twelve agile principles and taken a look at how we can apply them and update them for the digital world we’re now working in.

If you want a new challenge, consider picking two or three of these to focus on in your next sprint, and try to find opportunities to put these updated SUPERHERO principles into action.