Agile Essentials

Agile is a process framework most typically used in software development projects ideally suited for projects with high uncertainty. However the basic principles of Agile can apply to just about any type of context. The founders of Agile have developed a "Manifesto" that describes the basic tenets of Agile.

The four tenets are as follows*:

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
2. Delivery of value over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over rigid contracts
4. Responding to change over a detailed plan

Some other aspects of Agile are:

1. Early and continuous delivery of value
2. Adaptive insted of predictive to give maximum flexibility
3. Visibility for good and bad
4. Inspect and Adapt frequently
5. Become iteratively better
6. Result driven tasks
7. Face to face communication
8. Cross disciplined, motivated, empowered teams
9. Sustainable pace
10. Continuous attention to Quality

Agile Scrum (a particular flavor of Agile) arose from proceses that were designed to increase speed and flexiblity in the delivery of business or social value. It is a collaborative and change embracing method that cross-functional teams use to produce high quality deliverables through iterations of work time.

Scrum itself is specifically a lightweight process framework that is designed to focus the teams on delivering the highest priority items first. The fact is, that most projects or programs spend much of their time attempting to deliver some less-than-well-defined artifact, only to find that by the time it's done it's no longer relevant or needed. Scrum defies this by demanding that the highest priority items are addressed first, exposing issues, forcing the understanding of risk and dependencies, and in general bringing visibility to the team and the rest of the organization it lives in.

Read more information about the details of scrum. How would Scrum apply to your context?
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References:

1. http://www.agilemanifesto.org/
2. http://www.scrumalliance.org/articles/22-scrum-delivers
3. http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/scrum

*For the purposes of abstracting Agile out of the software world I have changed the wording slightly from the original, but it carries the same connotations (1).
* The focus on the first half of the statement doesn't mean that we don't care about the second half and need to consider them.