Stop Thinking So Small with Agile
In February of 2002 in Snowbird Utah, the Agile Manifesto was written. It was intended to be provocative, to cause upheaval in an entrenched system of thinking. It targeted the brave and few mavericks willing to let go of a myriad of software development security blankets and instead create value through new dynamics. It is now August 2008 in Toronto Ontario. Are we holding onto too constricted views of that 2002 statement in a way that could be holding us back from continued systems innovation? Are we stagnating and unnaturally suffocating the transformations that must naturally occur in order for a system to sustain itself? Are we thinking too small with Agile and are we afraid to allow and support the natural progression Agile’s usefulness and sustainability?
Value: For audience members, this talk provides a view of Agile as an ever transforming dynamic system. We intend to embrace this systems view to help push the envelope with regard to what next steps are out there on the road of Agility. We will present a very familiar system, Earth, as an example of what occurs with systems dynamics and how a system goes through virtuous and vicious cycles of transformation. With Earth as a model, we will then present our shared experiences from the field of virtuous and vicious cycles in Agile systems adoption. We will then propose three important next steps for/with Agile, steps that heed Earth’s warnings and encourage us to stop thinking so small with Agile and to welcome natural and useful systems transformation.
— Shorten feedback loops through faster throughput using Agile principles and practices — Apply these practices in Software as a Service versus large packaged product releases — Stop the tendency to overshoot the market/supply/demand by instead becoming deeply involved in Community, viral, networked marketing for uncovering the right components and functions to which you apply your scarce, valuable system resources
Our three proposed next steps will be justified in examples, system thinking models and parallel trend analysis. As a result, Agilists will be able to feel confident pushing the Agile system beyond its current perceived usefulness, taking away a well defined playbook for implementing these three next steps.
Tests: - You will understand the fundamentals of systems dynamics as we see them played out in the system Earth (what naturally occurring cycles of growth and waste do we see and how do the cycles impact one another) - You will understand how this model is useful in evaluating our use of Agile in software development (the sources of wastes and the opportunity for growth in the Software and IT industry) - You will understand three practices for attacking those wastes and the potential efficiencies resulting from steadily working to slay these wastes by applying Agile in a larger scale - You will understand a proven model for working through these types of naturally occurring systems
Jean and Ryan will continue their duet and work together to present their ongoing passion in getting software companies to get on the expert curve of agility. The talk will leverage their experiences from the field of scaling software agility and their research into the system dynamics of the high technology industry. We hope to drive your passion and ambitions for agility up while providing tools to sell, scale and counter-balance the immune system responses to large scale agility (also know as visibility, responsibility, transparency, and discipline) We also hope to change your perspective on the role agility plays in evolving the high technology industry toward true sustainability.
Agenda/Process: 1. Exponential Growth, Systems Dynamics and Long Feedback Loops 2. The Long Feedback Loops of Information Technology Industry 3. Three Solutions to Shortening IT/Software Feedback Loops 4. How to Expose and Sell through the FUD