What is Agile? Agile Explained... with a PENCIL!

Need a powerful demonstration of Agile that you can perform almost anywhere? Grab a pad and a pencil - I have a treat for you!

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What is Agile?

Today, I’m going to demonstrate Agile. By playing FOOTBALL. With a PENCIL.

Oh - and stick around to the end because I have a favour to ask!


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102. What is Agile? Agile Explained... with a PENCIL!
#AgileExplained #Agile #DevelopmentThatPays

Football ------ This is St James Park: home of Newcastle United Football Club. I was born in Newcastle, and grew up a few miles out of town. In Newcastle, they say that football isn’t life and death: it’s more important than that. Alas, my football skills were sadly lacking. But there was this game we’d play in class - when the teacher wasn’t looking. Football. Kind of. I’m sketchy on the rules; I guess we’d take turns to get across the pitch to score a goal. Agile Analogy ----- It struck me recently that the game is a rather lovely demonstration of Agile: We have value delivered in small increments as the “ball” makes its way up the pitch. And we have the opportunity to “course correct”: it’s easy to recover from a wayward first "kick". Special Pencil ------ Hold on a second. I think I’ve just figured out how to play this game. Where did I put my special pencil Ah here it is, My turn: Ready. Aim. Aim some more. Fire! I mean: Shoot! As I'm sure you've guessed, this big-ass pencil represents a Waterfall Approach. It’s an eggs in one basket approach: we design, build and test this leviathan. And launch it into the world. It’s either a big hit. Or it’s a big miss. No second chances. If our aim is true. If the playing field is flat. If the goalposts don’t move. We’re on to a winner. For me, that’s an awful lot of “ifs”. An awful lot of RISK. In an uncertain world, the big ass-pencil starts to look less like an unfair advantage, and more like an enormous liability. In an uncertain world, we need a pencil that’s more…what a good word here Agile. With this small but perfectly formed Agile pencil: our aim doesn’t have to be true. The playing field doesn’t need to be flat. The goal posts don’t need to stay put. All we have to do, is keep kicking. Can you do better ------- So what did you make of the What is Agile pencil analogy Perhaps you hated it.You thought that it didn’t work at all. Perhaps you really liked it, and are wondering where you can your hands on an enormous pencil. Either way, I’d like your help with something I’m planning: I’m on a mission to collect the best “Agile Analogies”. So if you have a good one… or have heard of a good one… or can think of a good one Please let me know. If it helps to answer the question: “What is Agile ” I want to hear about it. Let me know in the comments below. I very much look forward to reading them. And I’ll feature the best ones in a future episode - or episodes - of Development That Pays.

[Developmentthatpays]

Grab a pad. Grab a pencil. You're armed and ready... to demonstrate AGILE!

[samanthawalker]

Within a few seconds I understood more about agile than 35mins of other clips!! Thanks!!

[marklivingston]

Ok, so as I watched this I was reminded of my time as a surface warfare office in the US Navy. Ship navigation is completely an agile approach! You have wind, currents and tides constantly taking you off coarse. You take hourly or at a minimum 4 hour positions using a variety of means and plot the coordinates on the navigation chart. Are you where you expect/want to be? Usually not...change course, change speed, etc. and take another position fix in an hour and see where you are on the chart. Keep doing this until you arrive at the planned destination!

[arpanbhusaldeptofinformati]

if you can teach it to a 10 year old, only then you know the concept properly. This is a masterclass

[TunjungUtomo]

before we go into the analogy that you asked for, I just want you to know that I just found out about this channel this morning and subscribed immediately after, for your crisp and concise explanation of Scrum and Kanban.

Okay, so I'd like to analogize Agile as indoor volleyball, and Waterfall as football (soccer). In indoor volleyball you only have 3 oportunity to hit the ball whenever it comes to your side of court, you and your team must try to defend, pass, and try to make killing deliveries in just 3 steps. After each time you deploy an attack, there's almost nothing you can do except to observe and anticipate what's coming before your opposition 'deliver' their 'feedback' attack on you. Speed of thinking and action is paramount in this game, if you need to change strategy you can only do that during timeouts (limited opportunity) and between sets (=product iteration).

[sayedfaiztanvir]

Your pencil-football analogy hit the nail on its head. Great work!!

[MikeJonesTechno]

Two images: A cheetah and a Gazelle? Which one is more agile?


...
Cheetah = built for speed in a straight line
Gazelle = built for ability to change direction quickly
Learning: The gazelle is more agile and almost all cases wins - the cheetah focuses on picking out the young and the weak. Agile is about the ability to change direction quickly so you can experiment and adapt to changing market conditions (and avoid being eaten by the competition). I need to repeatedly remind people that Agile is not about going fast. Agile is about the ability to change direction quickly. Agile is a gazelle.

[sophierozsapage]

Great video and analogy. The only comment I would make is that I kind of disagree when you say that for each stroke we get value because there is value only when you score a goal. Other than that I love the part on risks etc.
The analogy I use is vacations:
The waterfall way is using a pre-packaged tour. Everything is set at the beginning and even if things are not going as planned, there is very little possibility to adapt. So if you, as a customer, want to spend less time or more time somewhere, if it is raining during a planned outdoor activity, if, if, if... then well you might end up not being a satisfied customer.
The agile way, you set a vision: destination, type of vacation (sports, cultural, beach, ...) and you fix your time and budget. You prioritise for the beginning of your trip the things you don't want to miss, your must haves. You may end up not doing everything you wanted to do, you may end up doing things you had not planned because once you are there you will adapt depending on what you see (not just what you had read). Your satisfaction of your vacations is not dependent on if you have done everything you had in mind before the trip (it does not depend on achieving the whole scope). And everything you do during your vacation is value delivered.

[HelloRascals]

Ok, I know you asked the question nearly 2 years ago but I really loved the pencil analogy so I would like to offer my analogy as well. Before seeing the video I felt like Agile is basically like most people's approach to life. You have set goals, but as things change along the way, you change what you want & so forth. A Waterfall approach might work for someone like a heir to a throne or a business. Their path is set, so they can move ahead with a rigid plan.

[Suemary]

This is brilliant. In New Zealand we played this game as kids but it was golf and you had to cross across the holes with the pencil line and work your way around the course. Sometimes you could even get a hole in one or two - if you were really good (I'm sure my brother cheated). This describes all the iterative development in Agile pretty well too. Thanks. Sue

[delightslay]

Agile is demonstrated in full in the game of soccer. the team can shoot the ball overtime they have it straight at kickoff towards the opposing goal, with an AIM to score a goal. they can decide to play to score with small increments by kicking the ball around and making progress down the field to the opposing half, breaking their defence and scoring a goal. they coach can course correct on strategies, make changes by substituting players, until the game is over. this is my analogy of AGILE that i think may easily resonate with soccer loving fans in the our field or profession.

[strommarn]

This is a "trivial" analogy - which makes it absolutely SPLENDID 👏
Sometimes it's hard to describe agile's advantages to someone who doesn't have the agile mindset.
I'm going to use this analogy in the future, thank you!

[mikependergrast]

I ran across this analogy.
You are a sailing ship, trying to get from Southampton to Boston.

You can determine you position from the sun and stars, the direction and strength of the winds and currents.  You know where you are, the current conditions, and where you want to get to.

Your have a good crew;  they are well trained, and can adapt the ship and sails to the conditions should they change rapidly, or if something unexpected happens.

You can't predict your journey time at the outset, but you can dynamically make better estimates as you go along, checking your position and adjusting.

You don.t worry about the past

You have a strategy, good tactical doctrine, and no need of an operation plan.

[MrRe-sjiv]

Thank you very much. This is so simple to catch up and not waste any second.

[bakiwebdev]

5 min save my life with struggling with agile, great and easy explanation.

[jamesallen]

Specifically with Scrum (yeah I know you asked for agile), I've heard CURLING used as an analogy.

The Developers are the rock (the stone)
The Scrum Master is the sweeper, guiding, not forcing
The Product Owner is the curler, or the stone pusher
The Sprint is the "curling sheet" or the ice between point a and point b
The Definition of Done is the curling target
The Working Increment of Software is the score you get

[Rahulsaisitisme]

Imagine you’re in a forest, you start your journey with your feet and move forward looking for food and shelter, on the other hand you climbed on a horse as you thought it had the map of the forest and will land you in a good place but it can go wrong too 😃 thank you for the explanation

[rtakkar]

I take an example from Sports itself. You are having a lovely day of cricket and chasing a good total. You are in front seat, plan is to keep run rate up without thinking about wickets much. but then you see black clouds coming in and you have to adapt to new condition. Now, you need to look after your wickets along with score as per DL method assessment.

[sanjyogi]

I recently introduced my children to this game...played this growing up in india...we used it call it rocket!

[rexduranzelandony]

Best explanation ever. It's still good in 2021