2016-08-14

Buying (into) Agile


Tom Breur
14 August 2016

Vendors of Agile solutions can rub me the wrong way, in a creepy way. More than once I have been turned off by claims that some piece of equipment, some technical solution, was advertised as “Agile”… How can that be? I find such claims enraging!! It is obviously seductive to decision makers, because if life were as easy as pulling out your wallet to achieve that elusive goal of becoming a more agile company –which can mean the difference between survival and extinction– then what’s not to like about it? Unfortunately, making your company more Agile is something you need to do, work hard to strive for, make difficult choices, painful trade-offs, etc. It is just not something you can buy! No process or framework, no technology, will do anything for you.

Obviously, technical limitations, cumbersome legacy, and whatnot, can hold you back from going faster, from delivering value to the business sooner and more often. But you cannot “buy” your way out of a limiting organization. Becoming more agile, finding more nimble and effective ways of working together is people work first, that may or may not have implications for the technology that empowered professionals choose to work with. Senior management deciding to purchase some tool or framework to achieve such elusive goals seems a step in exactly the opposite direction…



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