A quick (it's all relative, eh?) peek into some of the ideas we're going to be surfacing around our Enterprise 2.0 Market IQ (research paper), and forthcoming Enterprise 2.0 Training course (see announcement from our VP of Education, Atle Skjekkeland), premiering March 3rd in Boston at the AIIM International Expo & Conference. Carl Frappaolo and I are developing the research and training in parallel, as an exercise in juggling our "normal" Market Intelligence work, with the added fun of blazing some new educational ground. (sanity is over-rated as it turns out!)
None of our Enterprise 2.0 work is going to be targeted specifically at software development teams per se, as we are focused (typically) on the "tech-savvy business person" in most cases, but we are most definitely going to be pointing out a trend that has been brewing in software development for at least the last 15 years, and more broadly, to manufacturing processes, for over 50 years.
To start priming the pump and get your mind going, I found a succinct overview of Agile Project Management (based around SCRUM, one of the most popular "agile methods"), via Scribd.com - a self-publishing, mostly book-oriented service, similar to slideshare.net. Ironically, this example is a presentation - whoops!
I'm highlighting page 8 below (in the embedded version - or view it directly on scribd), which discusses tight, 30 day "sprints" (development cycles), and the quick (typically daily) 15 minute reviews that agile teams typically do. It is not uncommon for SaaS-oriented commercial outfits (such as salesforce.com, springcm.com, etc.) to release new software/functionality on a 1-3 month basis, non-stop, forever.
Flip through the presentation, and see what you think of the concepts and promises regarding SCRUM.
Can your team do that? (whether an internally-facing shop, or commercial development shop)
If yes, fantastic! Would love to hear your success stories. Please comment/trackback.
If no, why not? Have you tried this approach? Tried and died? Lacked management buy-in? Feel it's a fad? Please comment/trackback.
Regular readers will know I periodically ask specifically for feedback for internally facing development teams. My anecdotal evidence is that "corporate development/IT" is far behind the curve in adopting any agile practices (SCRUM or otherwise). I would love to be proven wrong however, so blow your horns folks!
Also, I'm starting a secret army (shh) of "BizTech" types, via the LinkedIn group I started this week. Current rallying point for discussions, for the moment at least, will remain this blog, but I have some ideas I want to bounce around as well, so join the BizTech Army! (I'm happy to network with just about anyone as well - the more connections, the more potential. Who knows, you could be the 3rd person in recent months that I've helped connect to their next job.)
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