On CIO.com Thomas Wailgum wrote a comprehensive commentary on the adoption of Agile processes in large organisations, and the sometimes frosty greeting they have at the Board level, with the arrival of yet another delivery methodology. He voiced the question - "If agile development is so darn good, then why hasn’t it been universally adopted?"
Read the entire article: How Agile Development Can Lead to Better Results and Technology-Business Alignment
“To say that companies or CIOs are reluctant to embrace agile is like saying they wouldn’t take aspirin for a headache....And they’re not only not taking the aspirin, they’re banging their heads against the wall and wondering why it hurts.” - Jim Johnson, Standish Group ChairmanThe author went on to explore, using case studies and interviews with CIO's of a number Fortune 500 companies, how preconceptions of Agile have caused uncomfortable feelings in their businesses:
Misapprehensions about agile still run rampant in IT organizations. Eugene Nizker, a former financial services CIO and current consultant, ticks off the most infamous ones: Agile teams do not plan. Agile teams skip design. Agile teams do not test. Agile means no documentation.But where there is darkness there is light, and the author covered some success stories of Agile delivering to the enterprise:
It is “a culture and timing change,” Waghray (CIO Verizon Wireless, Midwest) says of the process, “but I have never gotten more accolades from a business project.”In summary, Wailgum pondered: given the broad range of evidence, why are so many CIO's cool to Agile Software Development?
Read the entire article: How Agile Development Can Lead to Better Results and Technology-Business Alignment