70 Agility Quotes: Adapt, Innovate, and Thrive

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Get ready to unlock the power of innovation, thrive in change, and lead your business to success with these inspiring agility quotes!

The ability to adapt quickly, innovate continuously, and thrive amidst constant change is what separates leading organizations and individuals from the rest in today’s landscape. To inspire your journey, we’ve gathered a list of agility quotes from renowned leaders, thinkers, and experts below. These wise word should offer invaluable guidance on cultivating a responsive mindset, embracing new approaches, and empowering teams to navigate complexity with confidence!

(by Jonathan M. Pham)

Short Agility Quotes

  1. Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. – Stephen Hawking
  1. If everything seems under control, you just aren’t going fast enough. – Mario Andretti
  1. There is a way to do it better – find it! – Thomas Edison
  1. The only constant in Agile is change.
  1. No plan survives contact with the enemy. – Helmuth von Moltke

Motivational Agility Quotes

  1. The willingness to experiment with change may be the most essential ingredient to success. – Pat Summitt
  1. Focus on essentials and try not to get distracted by things that don’t add value. – Carlos Slim
  1. The best way to get a project done faster is to start sooner. – Jim Highsmith
  1. Successful leaders see opportunity in every difficulty rather than difficulty in every opportunity. – Reed Markham
  1. The only way to go fast is to go well. – Robert C. Martin

The only way to go fast is to go well

Famous agile quotes

Agile Mindset Quotes

  1. Agility is less about following agile processes and more about having a mindset of adaptability. – Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
  1. We practice mastering ourselves in the moment so that we can better open ourselves to being a servant leader and to harness our emotions and choose what to do with our reactions. – Lyssa Adkins
  1. Big egos have little ears. – Robert Schuller
  1. You will make mistakes. You will lose your cool and yell. Your mind will wander during the stand-up meeting. You will skillfully manipulate people into doing what you think is right for the team. The most important thing you can do in the face of your mistake is to model the agile value of openness. Transparently and with humility, simply own up to the impact of the mistake, and apologize for it. – Lyssa Adkins
  1. My advice is to stop emphasizing the process frameworks and start focusing on the company culture and mindsets. – Selena Delesie

Read more: 65 Curiosity Quotes – Ignite the Mind & Drive Success

agile mindset quotes

Speed and agility quotes

Emotional & Mental Agility Quotes

  1. Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be. – John Wooden
  1. Courage is not the absence of fear but fear walking. – Susan David
  1. The parent who praises a child’s accomplishment by saying, ‘You studied hard!’ promotes a growth mindset. The parent who says, ‘Look at your A, son! You’re a genius!’ promotes a fixed mindset. – Susan David
  1. Perhaps the best term to describe living at the edge of our ability, thriving and flourishing, being challenged but not overwhelmed, is simply “whelmed.” And a key part of being whelmed lies in being selective in our commitments, which means taking on the challenges that really speak to you. – Susan David
  1. Emotional agility is about loosening up, calming down, and living with more intention. It’s about choosing how you’ll respond to your emotional warning system. – Susan David

Read more: 50 Essential Emotional Intelligence Quotes for Success

Emotional agility is about loosening up

Quotes about mental agility

Learning Agility Quotes

  1. Planning is a quest for value. – Mike Cohn
  1. Scrum makes visible the dysfunctions and waste. – Kenneth Rubin
  1. Do the planning, but throw out the plans. – Mary Poppendieck
  1. Learning agility means to learn, de-learn, and relearn all the times. – Pearl Zhu
  1. Success today requires the agility and drive to constantly rethink, reinvigorate, react, and reinvent. – Bill Gates

Read more: 60 Learning and Development Quotes to Fuel Growth

Change Agility Quotes

  1. Lessons identified are not lessons learned: turn insights into action. – Al Humes
  1. Real growth happens in the trenches through immersive challenges. – Al Humes
  1. Values over rules: let culture, not hierarchy, guide decisions. – Al Humes
  1. If everything feels under control—it’s a sign to shake things up. – Mario Andretti
  1. If you are not better next month, you are no longer agile. – Mike Cohn

Read more: 57 Change Management Quotes – Wisdom for Leaders & Changemakers

Agility Quotes for Work

  1. All software is tested. The real question is whether the tester is you or your users. – Allen Holub
  1. Change will be incremental and take time. – Mike Cottmeyer
  1. Focus on idle work, not idle workers. – Ken Rubin
  1. Shaping the company’s future requires a board that fosters a culture of innovation and agility to adapt to changing market conditions. – Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
  1. A great process isn’t designed; it is evolved. So, the important thing isn’t your process; the important thing is your process for improving your process. – Henrik Kniberg

Read more: 50 Performance Quotes – Insights for High Achievement

the important thing is your process for improving your process

Saying for agility

Business Agility Quotes

  1. Agility means you are faster than your competition. – Michael Hugos
  1. An organization that treats programmers as morons will get moronic performance. – Bjarne Stroustrup
  1. If rewards encourage firefighting, you’ll hire an arsonist. – Jon Jorgensen
  1. Every great product owner needs a great ScrumMaster. – Roman Pichler
  1. Brainstorming is not about HOW, but how-to-wow. – Vikrmn

Read more: 60 Business Strategy Quotes – From Planning to Profit

brainstorming is not about how but how-to-wow

Agility quotes for business

Quotes about Leadership Agility

  1. Agile leaders lead teams; non-agile ones manage tasks. – Jim Highsmith
  1. As Scrum Master, you don’t need all answers; experimentation wins. – Rachel Davies & Liz Sedley
  1. The secret of getting ahead is getting started. – Mark Twain
  1. Trust must be the basis of any moral training. – Robert Baden-Powell
  1. Alignment of purpose and trust creates greatness. – Jeff Sutherland

Read more: 110 Leadership Quotes to Unlock Greatness

quotes about leadership agility

Leadership agility quotes

Quotes about Agile Methodology

  1. Scrum is the gamification of product development. – Rick Waters
  1. Scrum is a mirror. – Alistair Cockburn
  1. If box is too big, break it into smaller boxes. – Chet Hendrickson & Ron Jeffries
  1. Unneeded documentation doesn’t help—shared understanding does. – Jeff Patton
  1. Practicing Scrum with a project mindset is like playing hockey with a basketball. – Rick Waters

Read more: 75 Productivity Quotes – Boost Efficiency & Achieve More

scrum quotes

Scrum quotes

Quotes about Agile Project Management

  1. No heroics—if you need one, the plan has failed. – Jeff Sutherland
  1. Multitasking makes you stupid. Doing more than one thing at a time makes you slower and worse at both tasks. – Jeff Sutherland
  1. Blame is stupid. Fix the system instead. – Jeff Sutherland
  1. A good Scrum Master will hold team members to account if needed. A great Scrum Master will hold the team to account for not holding their teammates to account. – Geoff Watts
  1. If you adopt only one agile practice, let it be retrospectives. Everything else will follow. – Woody Zuill

Read more: 60 Collaboration Quotes – Inspiring Teamwork & Business Success

scaled agile quotes

Scaled Agile quotes

Quotes about Agile Development

  1. That which is a feature to a component team is a task to a feature team. – Ken Rubin
  1. Agility framed by utility outperforms rigid methodologies.
  1. Don’t just get better once; get better constantly. Always be looking for something to improve. – Jeff Sutherland
  1. Agile is an attitude, not a technique with boundaries. – Alistair Cockburn
  1. The first Agile principle is that our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. This provides the grounding teams need as they pursue the Agile path. – Larry Apke

Read more: 55 Growth Mindset Quotes – Insights for Business & Life

Agile Training & Coaching Quotes

  1. Agile coaching is more about who you are than any technique. – Lyssa Adkins
  1. Agile coaching is 60% being and 40% doing. – Lyssa Adkins
  1. The act of self‑organization encourages ownership of the problem. – Mike Cohn
  1. As an Agile coach, you don’t need all answers—experiment to find what works. – Rachel Davies & Liz Sedley
  1. A ScrumMaster who takes teams beyond getting agile practices up and running into their deliberate and joyful pursuit of high performance is an agile coach. – Lyssa Adkins

Read more: 42 Training Quotes to Motivate Continuous Learning

Funny Agile Quotes

  1. Scrum is like your mother‑in‑law—it points out ALL your faults. – Ken Schwaber
  1. Knock knock. Who’s there? Processes and tools. Processes and tools who? See, I told you he was Agile!
  1. Estimates are like the best lie we can give you. – Mike Beedle
  1. Agile is like Churchill’s democracy—the worst until compared to the alternatives. – David Starr
  1. Scrum without automation is like driving a sports car on a dirt track. – Ilan Goldstein

funny agile quotes

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