The agile manifesto has served us well now for 13 years and is still as valid as ever. The only problem now is that the agile mindset is expanding beyond software development, and when presenting the manifesto I often get asked about "Working Software over comprehensive documentation". This does seem to limit agile to the area of software development, which is not true as it can be used in many areas.
So why don't we be agile about the manifesto itself and embrace change? Perhaps it's time to tweak the wording slightly - what about
"Delivering value over comprehensive documentation?"
This small change would move the perception of agile into a whole new world, and actually describes more what we are trying to achieve.
Wednesday 16 July 2014
Saturday 5 July 2014
Agile Programme Management
I have been working most of this year with Jennifer Stapleton and Adrian Hicks on creating guidance for Agile Programme Management, soon to become one of the latest in the excellent DSDM publications.
Judging from the response from the DSDM members day in London and the APMG showcase last week, the effort has been worth it. The interest in it far exceeded expectations, with many wanting early copies and some even wanting to be early pilots. This seems to show that all the hard work could pay off.
We embarked on the initiative because of current trends in Agile. The success of Agile at the team level has left many organisations wanting more - wanting to tie it into their governance models and wanting to use it for large scale projects and programmes. In fact, I have been speaking at quite a few conferences recently and the themes are always around scaling, enterprise-wide implementation and cultural shift to get the most from it. So Agile Programme Management fits well into this trend.
I think it is an exciting time for Agile now. I find myself no longer having to give reasons why it should be used, but more to give advice on how it can be used, particularly at scale. In all that though, I hope the essence of team level agility remains and that we learn from nature when we think about scaling properly. I recently wrote an article on this, replicated at
http://www.dsdm.org/dig-deeper/articles/bees-ants-and-spiders-what-can-we-learn-about-scaling-nature
on the DSDM web site).
So onwards and upwards for agile - long may it continue!
Judging from the response from the DSDM members day in London and the APMG showcase last week, the effort has been worth it. The interest in it far exceeded expectations, with many wanting early copies and some even wanting to be early pilots. This seems to show that all the hard work could pay off.
We embarked on the initiative because of current trends in Agile. The success of Agile at the team level has left many organisations wanting more - wanting to tie it into their governance models and wanting to use it for large scale projects and programmes. In fact, I have been speaking at quite a few conferences recently and the themes are always around scaling, enterprise-wide implementation and cultural shift to get the most from it. So Agile Programme Management fits well into this trend.
I think it is an exciting time for Agile now. I find myself no longer having to give reasons why it should be used, but more to give advice on how it can be used, particularly at scale. In all that though, I hope the essence of team level agility remains and that we learn from nature when we think about scaling properly. I recently wrote an article on this, replicated at
http://www.dsdm.org/dig-deeper/articles/bees-ants-and-spiders-what-can-we-learn-about-scaling-nature
on the DSDM web site).
So onwards and upwards for agile - long may it continue!
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