The Agile Executive

In her recent post on the Rally event in Los Angeles, Jean characterized the energy in the room as “electric!” Yesterday’s event in New York was characterized by similar energy. There was something in the air – folks having a great time learning about and discussing the subtle points of the art of making great software.

Governance was a major topic for the participants in NYC. Those representing financial institutes highlighted the inevitable delay and disruption to the process that change control boards cause. Media folks indicated how difficult it is to reconcile the editorial process with the technical process. A disconnect seems to be happening in both cases: Agile is not broadly accepted beyond certain scale, nor by all corporate functions. Hence, various attempts to “harness” Agile, to only use it selectively.

Governance seems to be applied more pedantically these days due to cost cutting measures. In particular, experimentation is frowned at in many place. The simple fact that Agile fosters innovation through affordable experimentation is not fully understood. Nor are the precious life-cycle effects of innovation adequately comprehended.

I came out of the NYC event convinced that we as a movement have a great opportunity on our hands. What we -Agilists – do works quite well. The need clearly exists to elevate Agile to the enterprise level. We will be solving a real problem in so doing.