November 24, 2008

Defensive postures abound during this current economic mess, and most everywhere you turn, the mantra is about making deep cuts to avoid costs. There’s another approach: create a high-value, low-cost strategy that increases productivity while simultaneously delivering measurable value to company stakeholders, faster, than via traditional methods.

So… If I were a technology manager, I’d be focusing on key strategies to make the best out the current situation. I’d deliver smaller software releases with high value features – first and foremost at the top of the list, use teams that are as small as possible, and avoid costly rework by making sure that “tight communication-feedback loops” help get software done right, as much as possible, the first time. And secure management buy-in on this strategy by showing them ROI numbers on how it works. Sounds like Agile development.

“Agile in Turbulent Times,” is the theme of a two-part webinar sponsored by Rally Software on Wednesday, December 10th at 1pm EST. I am pleased to be the host of Part 1, “Proving the Financial Benefit of Agile,” where we’ll show how to quantify the financial return, time-to-market, cost, and quality of successful agile strategies. The highlight will be the result of a study that QSM Associates performed on 30 agile projects across 9 companies, comparing the results against the QSM SLIM-Metrics database which contains trends from over 7,500 completed projects collected worldwide.

To read the detailed description, or to register for this event, click here. I look forward to having you join us!