How does an Agile approach differ from a traditional manager-to-employee directed approach?

• A. Management defines all tasks with no team input
• B. The teams determine what and how to build their elements of the solution
• C. Projects follow a rigid plan with no adaptation
• D. Customers dictate all technical details

Answer: (B)

Agile emphasizes self-organizing, cross-functional teams that own both what to build and how to build it. The team collaborates with product owners and stakeholders to decide priorities, split work into workable increments, and choose the best technical approach within those priorities. This autonomy—teams determining what and how to build their elements of the solution—is the hallmark of Agile. In a traditional manager-to-employee directive model, tasks are given top-down by management, plans tend to be rigid with little room for change, and even while customers influence needs, the technical implementation is driven externally rather than by the empowered team.