The Evolution of Agile with Mike Cottmeyer

Agile methodologies have gradually emerged over the past 30 years but really became a thing with the signing of the Agile Manifesto back in 2001. When the Manifesto was signed, most Agilist were talking about small teams, embedded customers, and deploying working tested software on regular—and very short—intervals.

Fast forward 20 years, and we have large mega-corporations attempting to unlock the secrets of agility in businesses with tens of thousands of people, heavyweight governance, high-compliance regulatory environments, with expectations for making revenue commitments within strict time and cost constraints. How do we reconcile these two worlds?
This talk will explore the differences between team-level Agility, larger-scale organizational Agility, and ultimately business-focused enterprise Agility.

We will look at how the team-level approaches work and where they break down in larger companies. We will explore how large-scale organizational Agile approaches sought to address some of the shortcomings of team-level Agile but still fell short. Finally, we will discuss what it means to have true organizational Agility, Business Agility if you will, and the considerations necessary to unlock the dynamic possibilities of a truly Agile corporation.

We will close the conversation with why team-level Agile doesn’t necessarily lead to Business Agility and explore some ideas for how you might increase your chances of success and achieving the organizational benefits you are searching for.