Agile Workflow: What is it and how to build your own one

This article introduces what is agile workflow and steps you need to take to build up your own one
All posts
Jackie Peng
Updated: 11/21/2024

Are you looking for what is Agile Workflow and how to step-by-step implement one yourself?

And are you interested in improving your project management skills and adopting an agile workflow?

With more and more companies adopting agile development, now is the perfect time to learn what it’s all about and how to implement it effectively.

What is Agile Workflow?

N7Xe-hlmi3VGY8arnr2OZKYutpdFCtBUywlraoHy1pM=

If with one sentence introducing the definition of the agile workflow, it’d be like: Agile workflow is a flexible, iterative project management approach that emphasizes collaboration, adaptability, and customer-centricity to efficiently deliver high-quality products or services.

To achieve the Agile goal, we need:

  • focus on breaking work into small, manageable iterations, fostering open communication and collaboration among cross-functional team members
  • And we should also continually adapting plans based on customer feedback and evolving requirements.

What are the main differences between agile project management and traditional project management?

idfFdq1JrHrVWGQNvhjabEWxfZaxeWQ8PqFiyjr-YOw=

  1. Planning and Adaptability:
  • Agile project management is adaptive, with evolving plans based on new information. Agile teams adjust plans and goals as needed. In contrast, traditional project management follows a fixed plan with a predefined scope, schedule, and budget, allowing little room for change. For example, a traditional project might have a detailed Gantt chart outlining the project’s timeline and milestones, with little room for deviation or change. 2. Iterative Development vs. Linear Approach:

  • Agile uses iterative development, delivering small increments at the end of each iteration. Traditional project management follows a linear, phased approach, often referred to as the Waterfall model, where each stage is completed before moving on to the next. For example, in a traditional construction project, the design phase is completed before construction begins, and there is no opportunity for revisiting design decisions once construction is underway. 3. Collaboration and Team Dynamics:

  • Agile emphasizes collaboration, open communication, and close-knit cross-functional teams. Traditional project management relies on hierarchical structures and more rigid communication channels, with limited team collaboration opportunities. For example, a traditional project manager might assign tasks to team members and receive status updates through weekly status reports, with limited opportunities for team collaboration or input.

Choosing the right Agile Framework

When selecting an Agile framework, it’s essential to consider your project’s needs and team dynamics. Here, we make the Scrum as an example since it is a most popular Agile framework that emphasizes collaboration, adaptability, and iterative development, making it an excellent choice for many projects.

  1. Understand Scrum fundamentals: Familiarize yourself with Scrum’s core principles, values, and roles, including the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Development Team.
  2. Create a product backlog: The Product Owner works with stakeholders to create a prioritized list of features, enhancements, and bug fixes, known as the product backlog.
  3. Plan a sprint: The team selects work items from the product backlog to include in the sprint backlog. They estimate effort, prioritize tasks, and commit to a potentially shippable increment by the end of the sprint.
  4. Track sprint progress: The team uses tools such as Scrum boards to visualize progress, track work items, and monitor sprint goals.
  5. Review and adapt: At the end of the sprint, the team holds a sprint review to demonstrate the increment to stakeholders, gather feedback, and update the product backlog. They also conduct a sprint retrospective to identify improvements for the next sprint.
  6. Repeat the process: The team continues to plan, execute, review, and adapt sprints until the project is complete or the product backlog is empty.

Step-by-Step Guide to implement Agile Workflow with AFFiNE

Everything will become much easier once if you find out the right application tool. Luckily, Agile workflow is the key part that AFFiNE strives for building up.

Here’s the quick breakdown of step by step for implementing the Agile workflow with the use of AFFiNE

1.Brainstorming the project’s goal with edgeless mode

qpSswoZIiclrGL1irxtXJ7IZLJiKOCtI9D3615D5hjU=

Brainstorming & Goal settingBrainstorming is essential for project managers to generate ideas, solve problems, and make decisions. So in here, by means of the use of AFFiNE Edgeless mode, you can easily utilize those tools to draw, build shapes, adjust, and connect the process. In addition, you can also evaluate your project’s business potential and setup your goal, divide the goal into sub-goals, breakdown the tasks and define the proper indicators to measure its success with team members together and with a visualized way. It offers you and your team members to share their thoughts and suggestions, leading to innovative solutions and improved project outcomes.

2.Setup the project scope with the Paper mode

moki3ujl73RWbTJ_w1Syp10qgdFLiNAjizCZc4kv5Oo=

Project introduction & scopeSetting up the project scope is a critical step in ensuring that a project is successful. It involves defining the goals, objectives, deliverables, timelines, and budget of the project. A well-defined project scope helps to ensure that everyone involved in the project is clear on what is expected of them and helps to minimize misunderstandings and miscommunications.

3.List your priority with table view

6oYX2icqkFHDqZyho2C80SU7JKTZfDsCOqFAuBjBJbw=

Once you have identified your sub-goals, success indicators, and project scope, timeline, it’s time to build a table to prioritize your tasks. This involves identifying the most important tasks and organizing them in order of priority. This way, you can focus on the most critical tasks first and work towards achieving your overall goal systematically.

At AFFiNE, we are dedicated to creating app that meets the changing needs of project management of our users. We understand that users care about more than just the basic editing functions, and we are constantly working to develop new and innovative features to enhance the user experience like the Calendar and Box view. We encourage users to stay tuned for updates in https://affine.pro/, and to continue providing us with feedback on how we can improve our software to better meet their needs.


AFFiNE is still in alpha, but we are continuing to build to a more feature-rich and stable build. Come and join us on our journey over on our media platforms.