The Agile scaling myth goes something like this: “Agile development works well for smaller projects, but doesn’t scale to larger ones.” Which raises questions like: “At what size does delivering value to customers fail to be important?” and “Can large organizations afford to be inflexible, rigid, and unresponsive?”
The obvious answers to these questions are: customer value is always important, and agility is an imperative for organizations both large and small. How to achieve agility with larger projects is the relevant question. This webinar provides a framework for how to deliver on larger projects by focusing on three key issues: how to adapt practices and processes as complexity (size is one complexity factor) and uncertainty increase; how to focus teams on the critical issue of customer value (large teams often get lost in complexity and lose track of the project’s goals), and how to scale from single self-organizing, collaborative teams to of self-organizing, collaborative teams of teams. This webinar also demonstrates how Thoughtworks Studios' tool Mingle can be used to support delivery of larger programs of work while remaining adaptive, enabling users to focus on value and supporting collaboration at all levels of delivery.
Speakers:
Jim Highsmith is an executive consultant at Thoughtworks. He has 30-plus years experience as an IT manager, product manager, project manager, consultant, and software developer. Jim is the author of Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Addison Wesley 2004; Adaptive Software Development: A Collaborative Approach to Managing Complex Systems, Dorset House 2000 and winner of the prestigious Jolt Award, and Agile Software Development Ecosystems, Addison Wesley 2002. Jim is the recipient of the 2005 international Stevens Award for outstanding contributions to systems development. Jim is a coauthor of the Agile Manifesto, a founding member of The AgileAlliance, coauthor of the Declaration Interdependence for project leaders, and cofounder and first president of the Agile Project Leadership Network. Jim has consulted with IT and product development organizations and software companies around the world.
Suzie Prince is responsible for defining the future vision and roadmap for Mingle, Thoughtworks Studios' Agile Project Management tool. Over the past 7 years in Thoughtworks, she has worked both in consulting services and product development.
Disclaimer: The statements and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Thoughtworks.
