Agile Freelancing

When Sir Walter Scott was describing mercenaries not sworn to any lord or liege as free-lances in his epic Ivanhoe, never would he have thought that the term would go on to become one of the most central aspects of the modern cognitive-cultural economy. Although the idea of self-sovereignty as professed by Sir Scott is still the same, 21st century freelancers do a variety of jobs in all sectors. Gone are the days of Fordism, when the entire workforce was deployed on the assembly line, each supervised to complete a very specialised task, repeatedly. Cutting edge technologies in global connectivity and intelligent automation has made today's work-life more flexible and less mundane. In fact ideas like work from home and modular designs, have proven vital in the ongoing pandemic crisis.

Early software development industries applied age old business practices with hierarchical superstructures and heavy documentation. The idea of "waterfall" development, describes how sequential and protocolized each step of development used to be. Every bit of code micro managed, and each procedure overly planned. Hence in 2001, a group of 17 software engineers met at Snowbird, Utah to pen what changed the industry forever. This short codification is known as the Agile Manifesto, the breathing air for today's firms. Today, the philosophies espoused by the manifesto, has not just led to the development of many software development procedures such as SCRUM, Lean or Kanban, but also has been heavily influential in the governing strategies of many other unrelated industries like digital media, or even in the arts.

As more and more industries transform into gig economies, the need for non-payroll employees will only increase. The software development sector will also prefer services of talent well acquainted with agile methodologies and flexible strategies. For fresh graduates and aspirants, these changing times could be very challenging, and without adequate tweaks to work-ethics, coding, as well as general outlook and attitude, one might feel like a fish out of water. This blog aims to address these changes, while providing important info about how to ride this storm successfully.