First principle of the Agile Manifesto

If you are reading this blog, you probably already know about the "Agile Manifesto". Just in case, let me remind you that, this "Agile Manifesto"is a very short text that gather the main thinkers of IT agile methodologies like Kent Beck, Ron Jeffries, Ward Cunningham (eXtreme Programming), Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland (SCRUM), Alistair Cockburn (Crystal methologies) etc. This text emphasize that some common really important IT milestones are finally less important than others when we follow agile principles.

The Manifesto values more Individuals and interactions than processes and tools. This may seem obvious that people are the main key success factor of any project. Nonetheless are you not astonished to realize that when something get wrong it is more than often seen as an 'organizational' problem ? There are always some guys who will argue that we need more processes, more roles, a heavier workflow to make things work. Too often, these guys are just not able to discuss with their peers and feel more comfortable when there is a clear hierarchical link.
Finally what is a team ? Is it a group of people who share a common set of tools and are linked through a collection of processes or is it a group of people who share a same vision, the same objectives ? As always, both is better !

Agility and inventory

This morning I take a plane from Paris to Monaco and the flight has been delayed for an uncommon reason an issue with the truck that has to push the plane to the lane of departure. We had to wait in the plane for more than an hour for our plane to be handled by a new truck.

Thinking about this lead me to tackle the subject of inventory and agility. Indeed, if there was an available truck, our plane could have taken of on time. It seems obvious that keeping some products in an inventory help bear an unforecast demand for that product. Some people would say that it is an obvious sign of agility (1) while some others would say that lean production and zero stock is far more agile (2) !
Probably agility is in the middle of this two first points of view depending of your business and the time it takes to be restocked.

In my truck case, the agile driver should have been careful concerning the level of gas. It had just run out of gas !

Welcome on this new blog about agility !

Let's go for a new blog on agility issue !

I should acknowledge it right now : I am a former (not so former after all) IT software engineer. I currently lead IT projects for my company. In fact, as you may know or not agility has been a real issue in IT projects for years and I have been interested in it for something like eight years. One of my favorite game is to try to apply on other area than IT agility ideas.

This blog will mainly focus on what agility means, what are the pros and cons of agility (yes there are some cons !!!), how can we effectively implement agility etc. I will indeed use my knowledge about different software methodologies like scrum, or eXtreme Programming. However the main aim of this blog is to share ideas about how to apply agility in different areas.

Perhaps we should begin by finding our own definition of agility !
What do agility means for you ?
I will try to summarize your point of view in my next message.