What is Agile Methodology?

Agile Methodology is considered a ground-breaking practice in project management. Tied closely with software development, Agile Methodology is essentially a practice that helps project management anticipate and counter unpredictability and vulnerability. The quintessential aim of the Agile Methodology is to help avoid project delays and overruns by addressing bottlenecks at all stages of the project development. This goes a long way in cutting the costs and other problems associated with keeping all these activities towards the end of the project, by when it could be either too expensive or impractical to carry out these critical changes.

Deeply related to software project management

As the discipline of software grew, it spawned and spanned several technologies, as well as business requirements, which had to accommodate the new changes. This necessitated the development of a flexible system or model of software development, the culmination of which resulted in the Agile Methodology.

Agile Methodology did not come into effect out of the blue. It took persistent effort from the IT community to arrive at a model of project management that addressed their needs in a comprehensive manner.

Agile Methodology is not a standalone

The term 'Agile' is a comprehensive term with which several models used for agile development –Scrum being the primary one among them –are identified.

Features of Agile Methodology

1.      The overwhelming emphasis that the Agile Methodology focuses on is that the whole team should be tightly knit. It takes everyone and all aspects, be it quality assurance, developers, the customer, as well as project management itself, in the loop.

2.      Since coordination and integration of such complex parts is integral to project management; the Agile Methodology attaches a high degree of importance to frequent communication. The frequency of these meetings is best determined by the team based on its convenience, but meeting at least once a day is considered an acceptable frequency to discuss and take action on the progress made, so that oversights can be spotted and rectified then and there.

3.      Agile Methodology also has what are called sprints. These are delivery cycles. These sprints are designed keeping in mind the fact that there could be short-term deliveries, ranging from one to four weeks.

4.      The Agile Methodology facilitates very open communication techniques and tools. Everyone in the team –the customer included –is encouraged to express views and offer feedback in an open and transparent manner. When the software is being implemented; these are considered seriously.

References:

http://www.tutorialspoint.com/management_concepts/agile_project_management.htm

http://agilemethodology.org/

Anatomy of Agile Enterprise

Overview:

Gone are the days of business-as-usual tranquility. As today's competitive advantage may be a disadvantage as soon as tomorrow, long-run superior performance calls for non-stop innovation of new value. An agile enterprise must continually change and must even be able to reinvent its core essence in the face of major business discontinuities. 

There is hardly any business change in which information technology (IT) does not play a role. In contrast, change is increasingly IT-driven. In addition to cost efficiency and reliability of operations, the role of IT as the enabler of organizational agility and innovation is increasing in importance.

Why should you attend: Information Technology (IT) has a fundamental impact in organizations and the society at large: unprecedented computing power, infinity of virtual space and ubiquitous connectivity present an enormous potential to create enterprise effectiveness, increase flexibility and enable entirely new business models. 

The traditional "IT follows business" approach may have worked reasonably well in the relatively stable and predictable business environments of the past, but it falls increasingly short in the face of today's dynamic markets, where competitive advantage is in a continuous flux. In these turbulent times, IT must redeem its promise as a competitive weapon and determine the way in which business is conducted.

Areas Covered in the Session:  

Agile Imperative

Agile Strategy

Agile Organization

Agile Leadership

Agile Governance

Agile Architecture

Agile IT

Who Will Benefit:

CEO 

Executive Vice president

General Manager

CIO

About Speaker - 

 Janne J. Korhonen is an independent business and IT consultant, specializing in organization design, enterprise architecture and governance. He brings long-time versatile experience as an architect and consultant in a variety of strategic, enterprise-scale and mission-critical IT projects. In his consulting, he leverages multi-disciplinary research insights and leading edge practices to facilitate systemic co-development of technological, organizational and individual capabilities. He is specialized in how information technology can be governed and applied strategically to catalyze organizational agility. His interventions aim at transformational vertical development with the potential of order-of-magnitude gains.