{"id":743,"date":"2014-07-08T10:23:40","date_gmt":"2014-07-08T10:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/?p=743"},"modified":"2014-07-21T10:06:17","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T10:06:17","slug":"is-it-better-to-be-agile-or-flexible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/?p=743","title":{"rendered":"Is it better to be agile or flexible ?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='watch-action'><div class='watch-position align-right'><div class='action-like'><a class='lbg-style1 like-743 jlk' href='javascript:void(0)' data-task='like' data-post_id='743' data-nonce='7fe64f64ff' rel='nofollow'><img src='https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Like' \/><span class='lc-743 lc'>45<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div> <div class='status-743 status align-right'><\/div><\/div><div class='wti-clear'><\/div><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-788 size-medium\" style=\"border: 1px solid lightgrey;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/change-ahead-shadow-300x300.png\" alt=\"change ahead shadow\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/change-ahead-shadow-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/change-ahead-shadow-110x110.png 110w, https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/change-ahead-shadow.png 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/>Being agile is to be able to move quickly and easily <span style=\"font-size: x-small;\"><sup>[1]<\/sup><\/span>. Being flexible is something else, it is the ability to be easily modified to respond to altered circumstances <span style=\"font-size: x-small;\"><sup>[2][3]<\/sup><\/span>. So if agility is about speed, flexibility is about adaptation. In a business solution <span style=\"font-size: x-small;\"><sup>[4]<\/sup><\/span> context, both are needed to respond effectively and efficiently to customer needs.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Agile development methodologies <span style=\"font-size: x-small;\"><sup>[5]<\/sup><\/span> are currently trendy, they promote an iterative and incremental solution development approach which allows to render value faster and more regularly to customers. That is fine provided that the customer requirements to be implemented in the next &#8220;agile&#8221; iteration do not induce a complete redesign of what has been previously built \u00a0&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>An iteration is basically a full project lifecycle applied to a pre-agreed subset of customer needs for a particular business solution. So it means that while designing a sub-set, the functional\u00a0and technical architecture strategy of the solution must cater for requirements that future iterations will (potentially) bring. But is that possible without considering the entire sets of requirements from the start, and thus going against the Agile principles ?<\/p>\n<table style=\"border: 0px; padding: 0px; height: 204px; background-color: #ffffff;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border: 0px solid #ffffff; padding: 0px; background-color: #ffffff;\" align=\"left\" valign=\"top\">To avoid that, flexible functional and technical architectures are needed. But how can this be achieved without knowing future needs ?<br \/>\nArchitects can for example make use of &#8220;design patterns&#8221; <span style=\"font-size: x-small;\"><sup>[6][7]<\/sup><\/span> which are formalized best practices they can use to solve common problems when designing solutions. These patterns result\u00a0 from their practical experience and know-how, they are valid across iterations and projects &#8211; e.g. object oriented design and service oriented architecture &#8211; and consequently not directly driven by customer needs !<\/td>\n<td style=\"background-color: #ffffff; border: 0px solid #ffffff; padding: 0px 25px;\" align=\"right\" valign=\"top\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-777\" src=\"http:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/agility-vs-flexibility-2-295x300.png\" alt=\"agility vs flexibility 2\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" \/><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>So if agility increases business value and time to market, it must not be at the expense of the organisation by applying additional burden and pressure to it. Flexibility prevents and caters for that. Flexibility is the mandatory companion to agility for efficient business solution delivery processes.<\/p>\n<p>References:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 11px;\">[1] <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oxforddictionaries.com\/definition\/english\/agile\">agile, www.oxforddictionaries.com<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 11px;\">[2] <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oxforddictionaries.com\/definition\/english\/flexible?q=flexible\">flexible, www.oxforddictionaries.com<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 11px;\">[3] <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Flexibility_(engineering)\">flexibility, wikipedia<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 11px;\">[4] <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/?page_id=473\">business solution<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 11px;\">[5] <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Agile_software_development\">agile software development, wikipedia<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 11px;\">[6] <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Design_pattern\">design pattern, wikipedia<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 11px;\">[7] <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Software_design_pattern\">software design patterns, wikipedia<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 11px;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Related articles<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/?p=100\">The submerged part of the iceberg<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/?p=17\">Quid of the functional strategy ?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/?p=91\">Let\u2019s improve ! \u2026 but, is a framework enough ?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>45 Being agile is to be able to move quickly and easily [1]. Being flexible is something else, it is the ability to be easily modified to respond to altered circumstances [2][3]. So if agility is about speed, flexibility is about adaptation. In a business solution [4] context, both are needed to respond effectively and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-methodology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=743"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1600,"href":"https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions\/1600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michelgoes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}