There have been so many times in my career when people asked me what they should do in one situation or another on their projects, and my answer usually is something like, “It depends.” That is, it depends on the situation, it depends on your team, and it depends on your organizational processes. If something isn’t working, then it’s necessary to change it. Their response would often be that they couldn’t change it because of a lack of support from senior management or stringent guidelines set in place by a project management office (PMO). This circular conversation is ever present in a Waterfall environment. Once I started becoming more ingrained in an Agile environment, the conversation shifted from “What should we do?” to “What could we do?” And that shift changed everything.

Now when I’m presented with a problem in a process or a unique direction, we can all work together to figure out the solution, knowing full well that we will make mistakes but that we will also learn from them. This is why Agile frameworks are so exciting! “What is the simplest thing we can do that works” is an Agile mantra as well as a reminder that being able to pivot and adapt to our environments is something that has not been present in our projects for years. Now the ability to tailor and learn is becoming the best practice.

My hope for you is that as you learn more and adapt to new best practices, you will not only have more freedom to determine what works, but you will also experience the catharsis of knowing that if it doesn’t work, you will fix it in the next iteration, expand your knowledge, and work together with your team to find the best solution—not because it is dictated by rules, but because it is the best solution in the moment.