Agile values: Responding to change over follow a plan

The fourth and final Agile value from the Agile Manifesto is responding to change over following a plan.  This value is a key difference between Waterfall and Agile.  A core theme in Agile is a laser focus on creating business value.  This is achieved by constantly checking in with stakeholders and the client to ensure the work you’re doing is still helpful to the business.

While having a plan is important for setting goals and creating a roadmap, the ability to respond dynamically to change is equally crucial.  This value is about the need to have both.  

Having a plan provides a sense of direction and gives the team focus to understand how to prioritize what they’re building. It helps them understand how the work they’re doing this sprint builds into a bigger picture and company objective.  It’s also critical that the team understands the long term goals so they can make architecture decisions today that will help the product to scale gracefully over time.  

This is overlaid with the expectation that you’re constantly talking with your customers and watching the market to see how your user’s needs may shift.  It may be that new laws are passed, the business landscape changes, or something that seemed critical isn’t as urgent now that other enhancements have been released.  The team expects that new information will come in during the quarter and incorporates that as part of their process.  Instead of writing long requirements documents and blindly working on a project for a year or longer - the team has a high level sense of where it’s going but only has a detailed backlog that’s a sprint or two out.  This means the team is not wasting time on discovery or backlog refinement on user stories that will become obsolete.  

The ability to change prioritization is built into the Agile process and the roadmap is reviewed with stakeholders at a regular cadence (this could be a monthly steering committee meeting or after each sprint review).  During these reviews tweaks in prioritization are made to continue to focus on what will bring the highest business value.  While the team stays attuned to the business needs, it doesn’t constantly shifts priorities based on urgent requests from leadership or the results of an A/B test.  The sprint remains sacred and once sprint planning is complete, the work that’s agreed upon in the sprint is intended to remain unchanged.

It's not about abandoning plans altogether but rather about striking a balance between structure and flexibility to not waste resources on something that will not provide direct benefit to the business.