What are Agile Methodologies? Definition & Examples
What are Agile Methodologies?
Agile methodologies are a set of flexible and iterative approaches to software development and project management. The core principles of agile methodologies prioritize collaboration, adaptability, and customer satisfaction. Instead of following a rigid, linear plan, agile embraces change and focuses on delivering smaller, incremental improvements over time.
Project planning happens continuously throughout the project, rather than all at once at the beginning. The goal is to deliver working software or products at each iteration or development cycle.
Benefits of Agile
Some of the major benefits of agile ways of working include:
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- It creates engagement between clients and end users, and increases customer satisfaction
- It can often support culture changes within organizations
- It provides more flexibility, which allows for more project control and the ability to pivot to changing customer needs or business needs
- It reduces waste in the form of meetings and activities that waste time and don’t offer value to the project or end product
- It supports faster detection of bugs and other issues, meaning a quicker turnaround time when it comes to fixing them
- It allows for more accountability and diversity of ideas
Common Agile Methodologies & Frameworks
Agile is an umbrella term that includes a variety of frameworks and practices designed to help teams deliver work iteratively, collaborate effectively, and adapt quickly to change.
While there are dozens of Agile-related approaches, most modern Agile teams rely on a smaller group of widely adopted frameworks and methodologies.
| Category | Agile Frameworks & Practices | Common Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Core Agile Frameworks | Scrum, Kanban, Scrumban, Lean, eXtreme Programming (XP) | Best for teams managing iterative project delivery, workflow optimization, and continuous improvement. |
| Scaling Agile Frameworks | SAFe, LeSS, Scrum at Scale, Spotify Model | Used by larger organizations that need to coordinate Agile practices across multiple teams or departments. |
| Agile Engineering & Delivery Practices | DevOps, CI/CD, Test-Driven Development (TDD), Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) | Focused on improving software quality, deployment speed, automation, and collaboration between development and operations teams. |
How the Methodologies Work & Examples
In this section, I’ll give an overview of some of the most important methods and approaches that digital project managers should know. All mentioned frameworks or approaches embrace the Agile Manifesto and use some form of Scrum, but they differ depending on factors such as whether they are team- or product focused, what level they’re applied on, and more.
Core Agile Frameworks
Scrum
Scrum is the most widely used Agile framework for managing iterative project delivery. It organizes work into short development cycles called sprints and emphasizes collaboration, continuous improvement, and adaptability.
Key Scrum ceremonies include:
- Sprint planning
- Daily standups
- Sprint reviews
- Sprint retrospectives
- Backlog refinement
During sprint planning, the team decides which features they can realistically complete in the next sprint. They then hold daily standups to discuss progress, blockers, and priorities.
At the end of each sprint, the team conducts a sprint review to demo new features to stakeholders and gather feedback. They also hold a retrospective to discuss what worked well and what could be improved in the next sprint.
Because requirements and customer feedback change frequently, Scrum helps the team stay flexible, collaborate closely, and continuously improve the product throughout development.
Kanban
Kanban focuses on continuous delivery and workflow visualization. Teams use Kanban boards to manage work in progress, improve flow, map out capacity planning, and identify bottlenecks.
Kanban is often well suited for:
- Operational teams
- Maintenance work
- Support environments
- Continuous delivery workflows
As tickets move through the workflow, the team can quickly identify bottlenecks, balance workloads, and manage capacity more effectively.
For example, if too many requests pile up in the “Waiting on Approval” stage, the team can immediately see where delays are occurring and adjust resources or processes accordingly.
Because work is delivered continuously rather than in fixed sprints, Kanban works especially well for operational support teams, maintenance environments, and ongoing service delivery workflows where priorities frequently shift.
Scrumban
Scrumban combines Scrum’s sprint structure with Kanban’s agile workflow visualization and flow optimization. Teams often use Scrumban when they want more flexibility than traditional Scrum provides.
A marketing team managing both planned campaign work and unexpected client requests might use Scrumban to combine Scrum’s sprint planning with Kanban’s flexible workflow visualization and task prioritization.
eXtreme Programming (XP)
XP is an Agile software development methodology focused on improving code quality, collaboration, and rapid feedback through engineering practices like:
- Pair programming
- Test-driven development (TDD)
- Continuous integration
A software development team building a high-traffic ecommerce platform might use XP to improve code quality and release updates faster through practices like pair programming, test-driven development (TDD), and continuous integration.
Agile Engineering & Delivery Practices
DevOps & CI/CD
DevOps combines software development and IT operations to improve collaboration, automate deployments, and accelerate delivery cycles.
Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) help teams release updates more reliably and frequently through automated testing and deployment workflows.
A SaaS company releasing frequent software updates might use DevOps and CI/CD pipelines to automate testing and deployments, helping teams ship new features faster while reducing release errors and downtime.
Scaling Agile Across Organizations
As organizations grow, Agile practices often need to scale across multiple teams, departments, or products.
SAFe
The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) helps large organizations coordinate Agile delivery across multiple teams while aligning development work with broader business objectives.
A global enterprise with multiple software teams building different parts of a banking platform might use SAFe to coordinate development, align priorities across departments, and manage large-scale product delivery more efficiently.
Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS)
LeSS extends Scrum principles across multiple teams working on the same product while maintaining a lightweight organizational structure.
A company with multiple product development teams building a single enterprise software platform might use LeSS to scale Scrum practices across teams while keeping processes lightweight and closely aligned.
Scrum at Scale
Scrum at Scale applies Scrum principles across larger organizations using modular coordination structures designed to improve alignment between teams.
A fast-growing tech company with dozens of product teams might use Scrum at Scale to coordinate Agile delivery across the organization while keeping teams aligned on priorities, workflows, and product goals.
Agile Project Management Approaches
AgilePM
AgilePM combines Agile delivery principles with more traditional project management structure and governance practices.
A government agency managing a large digital transformation project might use AgilePM to combine Agile delivery flexibility with the structured governance, documentation, and oversight required in highly regulated environments.
PRINCE2 Agile
PRINCE2 Agile blends the PRINCE2 project management methodology with Agile delivery practices, allowing organizations to balance governance with flexibility.
Here’s a short video I created about PRINCE2 Agile.
Additional Agile Approaches
Other Agile-related frameworks and models include:
- Nexus: A Scrum-based scaling framework designed to help multiple Scrum teams collaborate on a single product or initiative.
- Spotify Model: An Agile organizational model that structures teams into autonomous squads, tribes, chapters, and guilds to encourage flexibility and innovation at scale.
- Disciplined Agile (DA): A hybrid Agile toolkit that combines Agile, Lean, and DevOps practices to help organizations tailor workflows to their specific needs.
- AgileSHIFT: A business agility framework focused on helping entire organizations adopt Agile ways of thinking and working beyond just IT teams.
- Agile Digital Services (AgileDS): An Agile service management approach designed to support the ongoing delivery, maintenance, and improvement of digital services.
These approaches are typically used in larger enterprise or organizational agility environments.
Learn More About Agile Methods, Frameworks, & Approaches
The concept of enterprise project management focuses on aligning projects with the strategic goals of a company. Agile methods, frameworks, & approaches can be very useful for this.
Want to learn more about how to use Agile methodologies? Check out our expert-created courses in the DPM School. Or, start your journey with these agile project management courses and agile project management conferences.
