In February 2001, a group of renegade software engineers gathered at a ski resort in Snowbird, Utah and famously wrote the Agile Manifesto. They called into question the whole traditional Waterfall approach to product development and project management.
The Atlantic recently profiled that gathering in an article called “The Winter Getaway That Turned the Software World Upside Down: How a group of programming rebels started a global movement.” The article gives a fascinating glimpse of the birth of the whole Agile philosophy.
One of the Agile Manifesto coauthors, Jim Highsmith, observed a few years ago:
“Linear-thinking, prescriptive processes and standardized, unvarying practices are no match for today’s volatile product development environments.”
Deloitte recently reported that 94% of companies say that “agility and collaboration” are critical to their organization’s success, yet only 6% say that are “highly agile” today and 19% describe themselves as “not agile”.
Since 2001, the Agile movement has dramatically impacted not only project management, but organizational design in general. As businesses face increasing pressure from “digital transformation”, many are trying to make a shift in how they operate. But it’s easier said than done.
Here are a couple related cartoons I’ve drawn over the years.
“Stage Gate Innovation” January 2015
“Innovation Funnel“ March 2011
Woody Savage says
February 19, 2018 at 11:47 amI recently self-published this e-Book on Putting Your Customers’ Needs First … you might get some good cartoon ideas from some of the suggestions published in this 85 page booklet. Here is the link: https://cld.bz/Aqnifuu
P.S. See section on Six Stages of a Project!
Michael Kyritsis says
February 23, 2018 at 9:31 amThe Agile Manifesto definitely has had a huge impact but I don’t think those programmers alone are responsible for the change – there’s also been a shift in attitudes in society to expect instant gratification. Consider how emails have changed from digital versions of letters to short notes similar to IM. There’s no need to wait for a film or song to come out on disk – you can just stream it. There’s the “gig” economy, working from home, and generally the barriers to starting a business or any project are lower than they were in the past, meaning the tangible results need to be seen sooner.