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Agile Principles & ITIL

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Underlying and supporting the Agile Manifesto are the twelve principles that help to bring the Agile philosophy to life. The DevOps movement encourages us to adopt and adapt these principles into the ITIL lifecycle not to reinvent it, but to allow us to make it spin faster.  Let’s take a look at them individually and interpret them from an ITIL, operational and support perspective.
  1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer.  We do this through early and continuous delivery of the proper utility & warranty.
  2. Welcome changes, even late in development, by using well defined and nimble change, release and deployment management, teams and models, allowing our customers to remain competitive in their given market spaces.
  3. Deliver updated working services frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale. OK that one I modified a bit. We’ll  be Agile about it.
  4. Business people and IT must work together daily and collaborate from Strategy to CSI. Yes you will get things done.  See the bullet #3.
  5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Create a safe environment with clear goals and trust the skills you hired these people for. Empowered and responsible people will make it happen.  No one wants to fail.
  6. The most effective and efficient method of communication is face to face.  Remember lost in translation? How many times have you run through an email chain over a period of hours or days and still not been on the same page as the person or group you are communicating to?  Use your words and speak to one another.
  7. Complete or partially well defined and aligned processes that underpin service delivery and deliver measurable value to our customers are a primary measure of progress.
  8. Promote sustainable activities (just enough artifacts).  Create processes that can be quickly delivered in smaller integrated increments and on a continual basis through justifiable improvements that remain customer focused.
  9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhance agility.  It facilitates the introduction of services into the supported environment yet embeds continual improvement in all designs allowing us to meet current and future business needs.
  10. Simplicity, the art of maximizing the amount of work not done, is essential. Our processes have just enough controls to enable business results.
  11. The best services and processes emerge from self-organizing teams. Unlike hierarchical teams, self-organization will happen within the boundaries and against defined goals. Teams will choose the most efficient and effective ways to accomplish their work.
  12. At regular intervals, we reaffirm our customer’s requirements and then readjust our focus and behaviors appropriately.

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