Beyond Agile

Some decades after the term “Agile” was introduced in software development, one would expect that – assuming it was a good idea (which it is) – the concept should have been fully embedded in industry and we’re busy with other things. Still, and this never fails to surprise me, everyone is talking about “beyond Agile.” The notion seems to be something along the lines of “we’re still busy here implementing Agile, but perhaps we can start to think about what we can or should focus on next.” If you haven’t adopted Agile, then, for Pete’s sake, get a move on.

Business agility and all its enablers, such as agile software development, are critical for long-term business success. Because of this, going beyond Agile is, of course, the only reasonable thing to do, but one can interpret the “beyond” in a variety of ways. Here, I’ll share five “beyond Agile” concepts that I’ve been working on during the last years.

First, the traditional discussion around Agile was concerned with software and software development only. Especially for companies selling products, including mechanics and electronics, as well as software, the main question was how to combine the waterfall process associated with atoms with the Agile process associated with bits. Taking Agile beyond the realms of software and have it include the other technologies making up the product is a critical step in achieving business agility and allows for new and different business models.