I am sure this is going to sound ignorant, but, like other times, I’d ask you to take a closer look.
You see, I was sitting in a meeting today and we were discussing the business advantages of agile. Read that again. Not the development advantages, but the business advantages. And the conversation was not that deliberate, but that was what was happening. As I listened to the things the clients liked:
- Support for shifting priorities.
- Support for fail fast.
- Faster time to market.
I realized that these are the things that are in every small development shop that is forced to live to the whims of their clients. We’ve all either had those jobs, or those bosses that screamed like Chicken Little when the client stubbed her toe. But what I found so interesting is that agile appeared to be nothing more than the codification of that frenetic process. And I wonder if that isn’t the key to it’s success?
It’s the exact same negotiation, but slowed down for people that can’t, don’t, or shouldn’t change direction quickly.
Or is this completely obvious to everyone else and I’m just now getting it?
November 12, 2008 at 8:21 am
Interesting thought. I would disagree at first of agile being a business process. I think its just that agile development has a lot of aspects that clearly affect the business process itself: exactly the ones you mentioned.