Converting the strategy into activity

This week I attended an Ovum strategy briefing on Agile and agility. It was an engaging day with lots of good relevant experience articulated by some good speakers. I was particularly impressed with Colin Bird of Ripple-rock.

It didn't answer my perennial question about how much Agile is enough, but it did give some very clear pointers. Chief among them was the view postulated by the speaker from IBM that the pointers to agile teams are simply the regular delivery of usable software systems and cross functional team membership. He wasn't entirely prescriptive in stating which agile practices were essential but the nod was given to TDD.

As well as the technical software development techniques the other clear essential constituent was user stories. The representation of requirements as simple stories that can be understood or written by the business seems like a sensible way forward. These could be assessed for both effort to develop and given some form of business value. With a simpler method for capturing these wishes we could use them as the foundation for development planning.

Having been presented with some good strategic thinking the challenge is applying it to the organisation. Having a couple of significant changes to use as a starting point for agile implementation is a really useful tool. I intend to us it as a focus for generating some positive organisational change which is the way to move my personal effectiveness to the next level.