Managing waterfall projects is about protecting the notorious iron triangle: scope, budget and timeline. However, it is inherently rigid and leaves little to no room for innovation or new ideas. Large modern web projects have failed and potential long term relationships turned contentious due to the rigidity of waterfall. Poorly written requirements lead to new or changing requirements which leads to scope creep which leads to change orders, project delays and decreased project satisfaction. New ideas aren't allowed, including the good ones.

But sometimes the path forward isn’t completely clear, but the goals, vision and priorities are. Enter agile. It’s a way of thinking that prioritizes responding to reality over following a strict plan to deliver maximum value. Agility is a great fit for all projects, especially where the path is unclear but the goals and priorities are. It allows teams with varying areas of expertise to work together for the benefit of the project to chart the path forward, adjusting tasks along the way to allow new discoveries along the way to be implemented.

Agile is timeline and budget sensitive, and is an exercise thinking about how to solve complex problems. Guided by the project’s goals and priorities, it’s flexible to allow for shifting requirements and new ideas. Agile is flexible, collaborative and iterative in nature. It focuses on project goals and priorities, and allows space for innovation.

Agile, however, can require a significant paradigm shift for some people. Agile is about figuring out what we're doing based on today's realities (being agile) instead of wanting to know what we're doing weeks from now (following a plan). If the preceding sentence wasn't evidence enough, Agile is abstract in its core concepts, which comes off as too risky and increases the likelihood that an organization will adopt a more traditional approach, such as waterfall.

In this session we’ll explore:
- introduction to agile
- how to identify a project that’s a good fit for agile
- agile frameworks (scrum, kanban)
- how to establish project priorities and goals
- how to make sure work gets done and progress made (avoid an infinite loop)