The question sounds simple but the answer is probably not straight forward. There are thousands of books, blogs, courses, videos available on this subject, however, I still have a hard time understanding how does it work at a conceptual level. People say we can implement Agile methodology to software development to general business problems. Jeff Sutherland, Author of popular book on Agile ("Scrum"), suggests that we can solve humanities most important problems like poverty with this methodology.

I have been able to understand following things about Agile - Too much planning is a waste of time. Rather, just figure out the next important thing and get down to work. - Do things incrementally. For example, when building a software, rather building things in parts, build a smallest possible functional system and deliver it to it's user and then extend it feature by feature. (In contrast to other approaches, where you build things part by part ) - Respond on feedback rather than planning everything in advance. - Communication over documentation

However, what are the general principle of this methodology and how do we apply to projects other than software. How do we really solve world problems, the agile way?