The Agile Executive

I am involved these days in a bid to develop a suite of applications for a few inter-related data centers. There is nothing extraordinary about this bid. I have no doubt quite a few readers of his blog are routinely involved in similar undertakings.

Two stipulations, however, impressed me in the RFP:

1. Explicitly stated preference for choosing a vendor who uses Agile methods.
2. Requirement to have working code drops every week.

Both vendor preference and the working code requirement have been documented in writing as well as stated verbally in face-to-face meetings.  Moreover, best I can tell most other stipulations in the RFP (other than the functional requirements and a clause about location of the team) are about characteristics of the operating environment in these data centers, not about how the “sausage” should be made.

I have been doing Agile since 2003. I do not recall seeing such Agile stipulation at the heart of routine RFPs.