What Is Agile Really Like?
Project Management
Before I found Agile, managing artists felt like directing a low-budget student film. Picture a caffeinated juggler who had to manage 12 performers, a nearly nonexistent budget, and a Google Drive folder that quickly became a hellish mess. It eventually came to my understanding that Chaos wasn’t the exception during those times; it was the whole process.
Then came a later time, after stepping into the responsibility of quality product delivery at WIARA, I soon realised that the Chaos that typically comes with dealing with creatives and corporate dysfunction shares a lot of DNA. Agile, done right, isn’t about strict protocols or fancy terminology. Not really. I would like to imagine Agile as a flexible, people-first mindset that helps teams work better together, no matter the field. So it’s about clarity, trust, and adapting like your deadline depends on it. Because it does.
A few years ago, I was juggling a boat load of artists, four departments, a declining budget, four group chats, and a Google Drive folder that looked like a Picasso painting. Very abstract and not easy to understand. Everyone had a lot of passion. But no one was really listening or had a plan. We missed deadline after deadline because no one agreed on what “done” or “on time” even meant. Someone once presented an outdated version of the festival map design as the “Final version” to one of our sponsors and they probably weren’t impressed, to say the least.
Then one night, it’s 3 AM. I’m on a call with a DJ arguing about arrival time and festival stations, staring at a spreadsheet titled “FINAL_FINAL_v7,” and realizing my ‘project plan’ is a Post-it note that vaguely implies “figure it out.”
In other words, I wasn’t doing Agile—I was surviving.
Funny thing is, when I moved into software and operations, I expected clean processes and synced calendars. You would think that all these corporate institutions would have developed impressive and arguably flawless protocols of how things should be done work-wise in the best manner. What I found, however, was a different flavor of the same soup as before:
Chaos in the workplace is something many of us have felt in our workplaces. It’s all too familiar. The feeling when everything seems unpredictable, plans shift suddenly, and it’s hard to know what’s coming next. But chaos isn’t just random disorder per se. It’s often a natural part of dynamic, fast-moving environments where creativity and problem-solving collide. With a good attitude, reliable processes and on-time communication all that energy can be harvested towards where it can serve the ultimate purpose - delivering the project. On time and with high quality. And yet most teams don’t realize they’re improvising until it’s too late.
Back then, managing work felt almost like building IKEA furniture with five people yelling instructions, none of whom had actually taken the time to “read the manual”, but most were so sure of what needs to be done just the right way. It almost sounds like one of those old school jokes.
Some classic moments:
And the emotional toll? Burnout. Fast. But do you know what the worst part is? I thought I was the organized one in the team. Turns out, spreadsheets and Facebook chats don’t fix broken communication. They just alphabetize it.
Forget the jargon for a moment. Your first thoughts might be that Agile is about sprints, daily stand ups, or Jira boards with pastel labels.
That’s part of it—but before anything else, it’s a mindset.
It’s saying:
“Let’s make a small, testable bet… see how it works… and change direction before we crash into the mountain.”
Agile is:
My personal Agile epiphany?It wasn’t about moving faster.It was about being less wrong, more often.
To make that mindset work, many teams—including ours at WIARA—use a lightweight structure to keep delivery on track without becoming rigid.
A Scrum Team, for example, is built around three roles:
These roles navigate five recurring events:
They collectively produce three core artifacts:
That structure gives Agile its rhythm, but the mindset is what gives it momentum.
During one of WIARA’s projects, we once spotted a critical feature seriously veering off course—all thanks to a single user story that sounded right but meant the wrong thing. In our weekly sync, someone raised a hand and questioned: “Wait… is this even what the client needs?”
That single 5-minute conversation saved us from a sprint of wasted work. Agile didn’t just let us course-correct—it made the misalignment visible. That’s part of the magic.
Based on my experience in the creative world, too much flexibility tends to kill progress looking at it in the long run. While in the corporate world, too much structure strangles momentum. Agile helped me find the sweet spot.
At WIARA, our teams move fast without breaking trust. Agile isn’t a process we follow—it’s a rhythm that helps us live better.
“Agile gave me tools, sure. But more importantly, it gave me permission to stop pretending I had all the answers upfront.”
Agile doesn’t succeed because of daily standups, story points, or sprint velocity graphs.It works because it prioritizes people over process, and reality over rigidity.
You can have the prettiest roadmap on Notion.A perfectly estimated backlog. A color-coded burndown chart.But if no one on your team feels safe enough to say:
“I’m stuck.” “I think we’re building the wrong thing.” “Can we slow down and rethink this?”
Then all that structure becomes theater.
Agile gives teams a language for reality and permission to use it:
That’s not a failure of process.That’s evidence of trust.
Because real agility isn’t about moving fast—It’s about knowing when to pause, adapt, and refocus without shame or delay.
And that only happens when:
We’ve taken our time to build our framework around that belief.
But the true engine of delivery is communication that doesn’t hide behind process.
Agile doesn’t replace hard conversations—it gives you the scaffolding to have them, sooner and better.
And that’s why it works.
Agile isn't a belief system. It's a toolkit — one we adapt to fit each client, team, and context.
We don’t treat Agile as gospel. We treat it as a flexible framework for clarity, collaboration, and real-world momentum. Here's how that translates in our day-to-day work:
Every task has an owner.Every sprint has decision-makers.Nothing is left to assumption.
We avoid group ambiguity by assigning responsibility early and visibly. This doesn't create silos — it creates trust and clarity. People know where to go for answers, and who’s accountable for moving work forward.
Our workflows support deep work, not constant status updates.
Slack handles our day-to-day comms. Jira keeps work visible and organized. Notion centralizes everything from scope to docs.Figma allows real-time feedback when the design is in motion.
We don’t over-meet. We don’t micromanage. We give space for people to do their best thinking, and structure for it to connect.
Agile doesn’t resist change. It welcomes change and makes it less painful.
We prioritise surface shifts in scope or strategy early. We document them. We align before executing. That means no quiet chaos, no last-minute surprises, and no wasted effort building the wrong thing.
When priorities change, we don’t panic. We recalibrate.
It doesn’t matter if we’re launching a brand-new SaaS MVP or cleaning up the architecture of a legacy platform, our delivery rhythm stays consistent:
Start lean. Talk early. Test quickly. Adapt with intention. Deliver value in every sprint.
The specifics may vary — the mindset doesn’t.
By now it should be clear as day that Agile isn’t a buzzword for us. It’s a way of making the messy parts of building something feel workable.
Agile isn’t the goal. Working better — and delivering what matters — is.
Let’s be real: Agile can be a let down when:
I’ve seen Agile weaponized—used as a shield against accountability or as a reason to never commit. That’s not Agile. Nor is it okay. That’s process cosplay.
The red flags?
Agile isn’t magic and can’t do the work for us. It’s much needed hygiene. It only works if you do the work.
Looking back when I used to think Agile was a dev team thing. Now I know for sure—it’s a people thing.
Be you wrangling timelines, launching an MVP, or herding cats at a community event, Agile Project Management is a shift in how you see work itself.
If you’re:
You don’t need a bigger spreadsheet.You need a better process.
And believe us—Agile—done right—is a great place to start.
→ Want to see Agile in action?At WIARA, we help startups and SaaS teams build clarity into the process, not just features into a product.
📞 Book a call to explore how Agile fits your team
📚 Read how we deliver MVPs with strategic clarity
Let’s scope your next build together
Further Thinking
Anton Toshev•May 29, 2025•10 min readFive Ways to Write Good User Stories (Including Examples)
Anton Toshev•May 15, 2025•8 min readThe WIARA Project Delivery Playbook: How We Manage Agile Projects from Kickoff to Launch
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