How work flows

In under 10 minutes let us describe the agile "system of work" by drawing an analogy to how projects were once organised using physical documents. We compare a project's structure to a filing cabinet where shelves hold different projects, and each project consists of several ring binders. Each binder represents a major initiative (like a website's requirements),containing documents for specific deliverables (like a home page). These documents, in turn, are made up of individual pages containing the finest details of the work. This method of physically organising work into hierarchical components forms the conceptual basis for modern agile frameworks.

We then translate this physical analogy directly into agile terminology. The large ring binder is equivalent to an Epic, which is a large body of work. The documents within it are comparable to Features, which are specific services or deliverables that provide value. Finally, the individual pages correspond to User Stories, which are the smallest units of work that can be delivered. The fundamental shift in the agile approach is that instead of giving a developer the entire "ring binder" at once, work is broken down into these small "pages" or stories. Teams then pull these stories one by one from a prioritised list, limiting work-in-progress and focusing on incremental delivery.

Finally, we demonstrate how this system is implemented in two popular software tools: Jira and Azure Boards.  Both platforms are presented as being functionally identical, serving as digital versions of this agile process. They provide a Backlog view, which is the prioritised list of "pages" or stories waiting to be worked on. They also offer a Board view (like a Kanban board), which visually tracks the progress of each story as it moves through stages such as "To Do," "In Progress," and "Done."  These tools effectively integrate the entire hierarchy