Content area
Full Text
For some years, Agile was seen as a collection of radical practices such as Scrum and Kanban that were relevant mainly to software development. Even though Agile's historical roots were in manufacturing, its initial advocates were software developers. Its foundational document, the Manifesto for Software Development of 2001, a developer-centric view of a team-based, information-sharing, customer-involving approach to delivering high-quality software, was largely ignored by general management.[2] But in the fifteen years that followed, the software solutions that Agile can produce at the speed necessary to be competitive have become the critical challenges of management. To survive, firms must deliver instant, personalized, frictionless responsiveness at scale. In leading firms, while the new level of performance is enabled by technology - including business model platforms, big data and program learning-it is driven by the goals, principles and values of Agile.
Since the publication of the Manifesto, the principles of Agile management have been clarified. Agile steadily became the standard way in which software is developed, including large-scale implementations.[3] Agile management is now spreading to every kind of organization and every aspect of their work, as recognized this year by the citadel of general management - Harvard Business Review .[4]
Now agile methodologies - which involve new values, principles, practices, and benefits and are a radical alternative to command-and-control-style management - are spreading across a broad range of industries and functions and even into the C-suite.
Yet at the very moment of Agile's apparent admission into the pantheon of general management, managers implementing Agile face a number of challenges.
1.
Agile itself continues to evolve
The Agile Manifesto of 2001 reflected the view that producing high-quality software would require a reversal of some of the principal assumptions of 20th Century management. It valued "individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation and responding to change over following a plan."[5]
Implicit in Agile values was a new set of questions. What if we could create workplaces that draw on all the talents of those doing the work? What if those talents are totally focused on delivering extraordinary value to the customers and other stakeholders for whom the work is being done? What if those receiving this unique value...