{"id":5639,"date":"2019-01-18T10:46:40","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T10:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.proprofs.com\/c\/?p=5639"},"modified":"2025-03-05T12:10:18","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T12:10:18","slug":"importance-of-agility-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.proprofsproject.com\/blog\/importance-of-agility-at-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Embracing the Importance of Agility at Work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Adjusting to changes in projects shouldn&#8217;t be a chore and it shouldn&#8217;t cause problems for everyone involved. Similarly, no change should be a huge surprise to everyone on a project. <strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Working on a project, and anything you\u2019re currently spending time on, with <strong>an agile approach can ensure issues are kept to a minimum.<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An agile approach to project management will help you take on new approaches, and essentially be ready to move the goalposts when necessary.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many organizations today are adopting this method, especially in the software development marketplace and technology which moves so quickly that it\u2019s almost impossible to stick to rigid plans.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, there is a project that aims to develop a software for a manufacturing system. It gets planned with best intentions to work on one particular platform. But suddenly that platform changes while the project is still in its development phase. Such switch can potentially cause problems with the overall project, if not handled correctly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Trying to keep projects on track by restricting the chance of change and resisting it as much as possible simply doesn\u2019t work these days, you have to be ready to adapt.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_17 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-grey\">\n<nav><ul class=\"ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1\"><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.proprofsproject.com\/blog\/importance-of-agility-at-work\/#Do_it_from_the_Outset\" title=\"Do it from the Outset\">Do it from the Outset<\/a><\/li><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.proprofsproject.com\/blog\/importance-of-agility-at-work\/#It_Helps_Customers\" title=\"It Helps Customers\">It Helps Customers<\/a><\/li><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.proprofsproject.com\/blog\/importance-of-agility-at-work\/#The_Psychological_Benefits\" title=\"The Psychological Benefits\">The Psychological Benefits<\/a><\/li><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.proprofsproject.com\/blog\/importance-of-agility-at-work\/#Technology_Again\" title=\"Technology, Again!\">Technology, Again!<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Do_it_from_the_Outset\"><\/span><b>Do it from the Outset<\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The fact that things change so often makes many people wonder why an agile approach to everything isn\u2019t just the norm. Heraclitus said way back that:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><em>The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Indeed, it\u2019s a universal law that things just keep moving, so why fight against it?<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is important that you accept that your project can move in all directions. It means that people can be late, can be early or can mess things up from time to time. Accepting all these scenarios will probably make the whole process a lot easier.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Expecting problems in advance and the \u201cthing\u201d that needs to be done before the other \u201cthing\u201d can happen, and will probably result in late outcome means it won\u2019t be a shock.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just accept it and work your way around it. Adjustment is necessary and so is change in course of action. But always maintain the end goal in mind.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"It_Helps_Customers\"><\/span><strong>It Helps Customers<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Whatever you\u2019re doing, it probably involves a customer of some kind. He or she could be a customer of the company or it could be another department. Either way, the agile approach also suggests that they should be part of the process from the start.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, this is a worry. Some project managers would like to have complete control over a new development and then announce its completion together with a huge fanfare. I\u2019ve seen this happen a lot and there has been an audible sigh from the assembled crowd when they see the fruits of the team\u2019s labor and realize it doesn&#8217;t align with their expectations.<\/p>\n<p>Far better to include them from the start.<\/p>\n<p>From experience, I know this to be true. A few years ago I wrote the specification for a new computer system to handle the recruitment of graduates at a large university. The specification took two months and hours of interviews between staff and managers.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of it, the specification was distributed for all to see, it was like a small novel in size and went into a lot of detail about how the system should look and operate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Then we started work on it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We took an agile approach, involving everyone in the development with constant feedback from the customer, end users (in this case students) and the programming team. We used an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.proprofs.com\/collaborate\/\">online collaboration tool<\/a> (unfortunately Project Bubble wasn\u2019t around then!) and everything went fairly smoothly.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the project, we had a finished product that everyone was happy with and nobody was surprised by.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, it was absolutely nothing like the original specification. My original document seemed to be specifying something completely different altogether. Didn\u2019t matter though, the system worked.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_Psychological_Benefits\"><\/span><strong>The Psychological Benefits<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Of course, productivity is the real winner here. However, it is important to mitigate any surprises. This sure-fire way will ensure that no productivity is lost to re-designing the entire process simply because we didn\u2019t know in a timely manner that something needed to change.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also a massive stress reliever. Not having to worry if someone will or won\u2019t like the changes you\u2019re making after you\u2019ve made them can ease the worry of an already <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">overburdened<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> project manager.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Technology_Again\"><\/span><strong>Technology, Again!<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Obviously keeping people informed is the key and so is having a cloud-based system in place. Both will enable you to inform and update other members working on the project constantly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are so many systems available these days and many are developed for specific needs, tasks and situations so it\u2019s best you search them out yourself. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, we\u2019d obviously push <a href=\"https:\/\/www.proprofsproject.com\/\">ProProfs Project<\/a> as a great all-arounder for keeping your projects on track.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Updating files, delegating tasks and keeping people up to date on progress is a breeze with its simple task layout and communication options.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Don\u2019t take our word for it though, sign up for its free trial here!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Adjusting to changes in projects shouldn&#8217;t be a chore and it shouldn&#8217;t cause problems for everyone involved. Similarly, no change should be a huge surprise to everyone on a project. Working on a project, and anything you\u2019re currently spending time on, with an agile approach can ensure issues are kept to a minimum. An agile&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-help-center"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Embracing the Importance of Agility at Work<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Adapting and adjusting to changes in a project can impact its results and the team working on it. But read how embracing agility is important at workplace\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.proprofsproject.com\/blog\/importance-of-agility-at-work\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Embracing the Importance of Agility at Work\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Learn how to build a training program, create online assessments, and improve corporate knowledge management with ProProfs.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.proprofsproject.com\/blog\/importance-of-agility-at-work\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ProProfs Project Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-01-18T10:46:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-05T12:10:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.proprofsproject.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Agility-in-the-Workplace-Is-Essential.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Miller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"David Miller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Embracing the Importance of Agility at Work","description":"Adapting and adjusting to changes in a project can impact its results and the team working on it. 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