An agile framework is a structured, iterative approach to planning, managing, and executing work that promotes collaboration across teams to deliver results within a defined timeframe.
According to McKinsey, team effectiveness is based on four health drivers: configuration, alignment, execution, and renewal. These health drivers define how well teams work together. In many cases, team effectiveness can determine whether a project succeeds or fails. Project success can also come down to the framework a team uses to execute. Their success rates can vary, but companies with defined project management processes consistently meet project goals more efficiently.
One way to strengthen your project management approach is to adopt an agile framework that fits your team’s needs for direction, deliverables, and deadlines. The Project Management Institute maps out five phases of project management to optimize — regardless of the framework you use to guide your work.
- Initiating: Kicking off the project with all requirements.
- Planning: Crafting a strategy to divide the project into manageable parts.
- Executing: Continuing with the work on a task-by-task basis.
- Controlling: Reviewing progress and testing for accuracy along the way.
- Closing: Completing the entire project according to the provided specifications.
Understanding these phases can help you choose the right framework for your business needs. While agile frameworks tend to be less rigid about step-by-step processes and deliverables, their strength lies in their ability to define roles and responsibilities — while improving the flow of communication between project contributors.
Several agile frameworks — including Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming (XP), and Crystal — are used today. These frameworks share commonalities and also provide distinct advantages. The goal is to find a framework that aligns with your company’s project management needs.
In this blog, you’ll learn about:
Agile framework examples for teams.
Agile methodologies are widely recognized for their flexibility, iterative approach, and ability to deliver continuous value. While there are several popular frameworks within the agile methods, each one offers unique advantages suited to different teams and projects.
Below, we’ll explore a few of the most effective agile frameworks that individual teams can implement to optimize their workflows, enhance collaboration, and adapt to changing requirements. Whether you’re in software development, marketing, or another industry, these frameworks provide the structure needed to achieve efficiency and success in an ever-changing environment.
Scrum.
Scrum is one of the most well-known agile frameworks. Initially developed for software project management, it’s now flexible and iterative, which can work well for non-technical teams. The framework emphasizes delivering value to company stakeholders.
In Scrum, projects are divided into time-boxed sprints, which are further split into smaller, incremental tasks. Each task is as self-contained and manageable as possible, allowing individual contributors to work from a well-defined set of criteria. Each sprint comprises a set of tasks spread over a team of contributors.
While there may be enough project work to fill several sprints, only one sprint is worked on at a time. Sprints usually last two to four weeks, making it easier for teams to provide finished work for stakeholder review at regular intervals. This also helps projects move forward efficiently while allowing the team to pivot where needed to address challenges or new information.
Scrum is considered a lightweight framework because it has a limited number of rules and requirements. This prevents project management from becoming too rigid and restricting team creativity. The framework is also easy for contributors to understand since it only requires a few different meeting types and a handful of values to implement.
In a Scrum framework, a few key roles are required to keep projects moving efficiently — with accountability. These roles include:
- Scrum master: Ensures the team follows Scrum practices, facilitates meetings, and removes impediments.
- Product owner: Manages product backlog and prioritizes tasks based on business and stakeholder needs.
- Developers (Scrum team): The cross-functional team responsible for delivering the work in each sprint.
The Scrum framework is best suited for teams looking for an approach that allows them to finish projects quickly and iteratively, respond to changing customer and market needs, and drive substantial business impact.
Kanban.
Kanban is a visual project management framework that helps teams manage the workflow by moving task cards through defined stages. Originally developed by Toyota to improve manufacturing efficiency, Kanban has since evolved into a popular agile framework used across industries. Today, these cards are often displayed in software programs as visual cues for a project’s status or development stage. Each card includes task requirements and the owner for that initiative, so it’s clear who’s working on what.
Tasks move through a series of vertical columns, each representing a production stage such as to do, in progress, or in review. Each card typically includes details like due dates, notes, and assignees. Items move from left to right across the board as they near completion.
This agile framework gives project teams a clear and visual representation of the number of items in each stage — in real time. It also identifies where processes need to be streamlined to avoid roadblocks and prepare for future work. This approach also enables project managers to oversee task flow while allowing team members to focus on completing their assigned work.
The Kanban framework is ideal for teams that manage continuous streams of work, such as IT operations, marketing, or customer support, where visibility and task prioritization are key.
Extreme Programming (XP).
Extreme Programming (XP) was developed to help software teams respond quickly to changing customer requirements while maintaining high code quality. This agile framework is also iterative. However, unlike Scrum’s structured roles and ceremonies, XP gives the development team more autonomy to manage prioritization and share work collaboratively. One team member typically tracks progress and metrics to help the team stay productive.
Instead of relying on predefined roles or visual boards like Scrum or Kanban, XP relies on a set of values that shape how teams work.
- Coding: Developers conceptualize their work through diagramming and modeling, working in pairs to tackle specific tasks.
- Testing: Developers prioritize cross-team quality assurance (QA) to produce bug-free code and prevent future technical setbacks or roadblocks.
- Listening: Product feature concepts are presented directly to developers, who break them down into actionable, discrete development tasks.
- Designing: Team members create a project infrastructure together to ensure the system's long-term efficiency and effectiveness.
- Feedback: Customer and internal stakeholder feedback shapes future project work and helps developers complete project tasks to address changing scope.
- Simplicity: Developers are encouraged to focus on current needs rather than future requirements, creating solutions that can be implemented as soon as they’re completed.
XP is best suited for experienced development teams working in fast-paced environments, where adaptability, frequent releases, and high code quality are essential.
Lean.
Lean is an agile methodology focused on eliminating unnecessary steps or ‘waste’ to improve team efficiency and streamline project delivery. This includes meetings that take up valuable time and impede progress, inefficient processes that slow progress, and distractions that prevent teams from completing work.
Lean requires team members to be clear on their roles and responsibilities, as the framework promotes autonomy over constant oversight. Because individual contributors work autonomously, this framework can increase trust between peers and managers — allowing tasks to be completed to specification with limited oversight.
The Lean framework is based on seven key principles:
- Eliminate waste: Focus only on tasks necessary for current project goals. Avoid work outside the immediate scope.
- Amplify learning: Encourage on-the-job learning to build skills and support evolving project needs.
- Decide as late as possible: Delay decisions to remain flexible in the face of shifting requirements.
- Deliver as fast as possible: Prioritize speed to enable frequent feedback and faster iteration.
- Empower the team: Give individuals control over scheduling, scoping, and delivery to improve accountability.
- Build integrity: Ensure deliverables meet technical and stakeholder needs before moving forward.
- See the whole: Promote collaboration and team-based recognition over individual performance metrics.
Lean frameworks work well for teams that need to produce regular results and adapt to evolving customer and stakeholder demands.
Crystal.
Crystal prioritizes people and communication as key project drivers, especially depending on the size of the team and the projects they’re tackling. This framework was developed in response to project management methods that relied heavily on rigid, step-by-step processes.
Using Crystal, talent is prioritized with ample time built into project schedules. This facilitates regular reflection and collaboration, which helps keep projects on track and improves process efficiency. Crystal adjusts its approach based on team size, with different variants tailored to specific ranges.
Using the above size tiers, leaders help implement seven principles to guide their team’s workflow approach:
- Frequent delivery: No fixed timelines are enforced. Rather, iterative releases aligned with project scope and customer needs are encouraged.
- Improvement through reflection: Crystal’s flexibility allows team members to note areas for improvement and make process changes on the fly.
- Consistent communication: Different team sizes work better with different approaches, from meetings to group work environments, but collaboration is key.
- Personal security: For processes to improve over time, contributors must feel welcome to share their perspectives through constant communication.
- Focus: Clearly defined tasks and goals help individuals and groups within a team break down projects into actionable items and meet expectations for deliverables.
- Access to experts and users: Regular feedback and answers to questions are easily accessible for everyone to continue moving the project forward.
- Technological tooling: During the project's testing and planning stages, team members are encouraged to address errors and share feedback.
The Crystal framework is often implemented by teams looking for additional flexibility and close collaboration to align with fast-changing requirements.
Agile frameworks compared.
Agile frameworks for organizations.
We’ve covered agile frameworks for individual teams — now let’s explore how they scale across entire organizations.
- Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a structured approach to applying agile practices at scale across large enterprises. It organizes work at the team, program, and portfolio levels, and includes concepts like the Agile Release Train (ART) to coordinate multiple teams. While widely used, some critics view it as overly prescriptive.
- Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) is a well-established framework that covers the full project lifecycle — emphasizing fixed time, cost, and quality. It operates on eight core principles (such as focus on business need, deliver on time, never compromise quality, and collaborate) and is known for its governance structure within an iterative approach.
- Feature-Driven Development (FDD) is a model-driven framework organized around specific, client-valued features. It follows five core activities: Developing an overall model, building a features list, planning by feature, designing by feature, and building by feature. It's well-suited to larger, complex projects where progress tracking is essential.
- The Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) extends Scrum practices across multiple teams. It draws on agile software development, lean product development, and systems thinking. Teams remain cross-functional and self-managing, promoting collaboration and alignment across departments. LeSS is essentially regular Scrum, enhanced with additional rules and guidance to support complex, large-scale initiatives, including multisite or offshore teams.
- Disciplined Agile (DA) is a learning-oriented process decision framework to deliver IT solutions. The approach prioritizes individual people and provides only light guidance to help teams optimize their processes according to specific project needs. DA incorporates practices from Scrum and Kanban while also covering business areas, like governance, DevOps, finance, and portfolio management.
Getting started with the right agile frameworks.
Choosing the right agile framework helps projects run more smoothly while supporting deadlines, budgets, and requirements. The best-fit framework varies by team — depending on workflows, roles, and project goals.
Evaluate the available frameworks to identify which supports your team’s structure, goals, and contributors the best. The right solution could even be a hybrid of a few different frameworks. If you’re unsure where to start, consider how your team size, organizational structure, customer demands, and company values impact your project management needs.
When you’re ready to take the next step, implementing a project management solution can help you centralize all the responsibilities critical to your project with collaboration and transparency in mind.
Adobe Workfront can help you manage projects using various agile frameworks. It's a fully featured project management system that allows you to prioritize tasks, track project progress, and keep your team aligned.
Watch an overview to see how Workfront supports agile frameworks at scale.
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