The journey to enterprise agility

Preface; Acknowledgments; Endorsements; Contents; 1: Todays? Problems with Enterprise Business Software; Test Drive Your Knowledge; 1.1 The New, New Thing; 1.2 Cheap Green Shirts; 1.3 Help! Wer?e Terrible!; 1.4 Aristotle, Descartes and Disconnection to Business Value; 1.5 The Mechanical Business World; 1.5.1 The Question of Business Value; 1.6 Scalability and Sustainability; 1.6.1 The Story of Sticky LaGrange; 1.7 Yes, But What About the Illth?; 1.7.1 Agile Illth; 1.8 Our Software Industry Problems Can Be Overcome; Test Drive Your Knowledge Again; Reference. 2: The Scholars of Systems ThinkingTest Drive Your Knowledge; 2.1 Hard and Soft Systems Thinking; 2.1.1 Dont? Worry: This Will Not Be a Complete History of Systems Thinking; 2.2 Systems Thinking Forms the Basis; Test Drive Your Knowledge Again; 3: Worldview and Intentions; Test Drive Your Knowledge; 3.1 Borrowing from the Buddha; 3.1.1 Right View; The Agile Manifesto; 3.1.2 Right Intention; 3.1.3 Right Speech; 3.1.4 Right Action; 3.2 Right View + Right Intention + Right Speech + Right Action; 3.2.1 A Worldview That Is Compatible with Success; Test Drive Your Knowledge Again; Reference. 4: Seven Principles of Systems Thinking for Software DevelopmentTest Drive Your Knowledge; 4.1 So Many Principles!; 4.1.1 Systems Thinking Principle 1: Trust=Speed; 4.1.2 Systems Thinking Principle 2: Avoid Best Practices; 4.1.3 Systems Thinking Principle 3: Beware the Immense Power of Analogies; 4.1.4 Systems Thinking Principle 4: Blame the System, Not the Person; 4.1.5 Systems Thinking Principle 5: Treat People Like People, Not Like Machines; 4.1.6 Systems Thinking Principle 6: Acknowledge Your Boundaries; 4.1.7 Systems Thinking Principle 7: Relation-ness Matters More Than Thing-ness. 4.2 Principles for Your WorldviewTest Drive Your Knowledge Again; References; 5: Redefining Professionalism; Test Drive Your Knowledge; 5.1 Understanding What It Means to Be a Professional; 5.1.1 What Defined the Professionalism of the Past?; 5.1.2 Mechanical Professionalism; 5.2 The New Professionalism; 5.3 The Principles of the New Professionalism; 5.3.1 New Professionalism Principle 1: Speak Up!; 5.3.1.1 The Stanford Prison Experiment; 5.3.1.2 Just ``Go Along;?? 5.3.1.3 You Know What? Il?l Just Become a Monk!; 5.3.1.4 Building Trust. 5.3.2 New Professionalism Principle 2: Solving Communication Problems with Via Negativa5.3.2.1 Via Negativa!; 5.3.2.2 A Different Way to Solve Communication Problems; 5.3.2.3 Addition Often Has More Bad Side-Effects; 5.3.2.4 Via Negativa for Retrospective Follow-Up Items; 5.3.3 New Professionalism Principle 3: Be an Advocate for Weak or Absent Voices; 5.3.3.1 General Motors Calculates Loss of Their Customers ?Lives; 5.3.3.2 Sony Builds a Back Door for Itselfand Hackers; 5.3.3.3 Sorry, But Heres? One More Story About Weak Voices; 5.3.3.4 Weak and Powerful Stakeholders.

This is the first book to seriously address the disconnection between nimble Agile teams and other groups in the enterprise, including enterprise architecture, the program management office (PMO), human resources, and even business executives. When an enterprise experiments with practice improvements, software development teams often jump on board with excitement, while other groups are left to wonder how they will fit in. We address how these groups can adapt to Agile teams. More importantly, we show how many Agile teams cause their own problems, damaging scalability and sustainability, by requiring special treatment, and by failing to bridge the gaps between themselves and other groups. We call this phenomenon 'Agile illth.' Adopting a set of 'best practices' is not enough. All of us, Agile teams and the corporate groups, must change our intentions and world views to be more compatible with the success of the enterprise. Join us on the journey to enterprise agility. It is a crooked path, fraught with danger, confusion and complexity. It is the only way to reach the pinnacles we hope to experience in the form of better business value delivered faster for less cost.