In last Steve Denning’s article on Forbes titled “Can The 21st Century Corporation Operate Without Agile?” we read:
The new industrial revolution may be enabled by technology, but it is not being driven by it.
[…]
Trying to exploit digital technology or the Internet with the management practices of hierarchical bureaucracy that is pervasive in big corporations today is like driving a horse and buggy on the freeway. To get beyond this horse-and-buggy management, and into something more relevant, managers need Agile.
[…]
These are however the results of Agile management, not the drivers of the new industrial revolution.
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The new mindset begins with a focus on continuous innovation and the future. It believes in banking, not necessarily banks. It believes in accommodation, not necessarily hotels. It believes in transport, not necessarily cars. It believes in health, not necessarily hospitals. It believes in education, not necessarily schools.
[…]
What is lacking is a recognition that the Agile way of running an organization constitutes, not just a random potpourri of management practices being driven by technology. It’s a coherent self-reinforcing system of leadership and management thinking that is driving the technology for the benefit of the customer.
It has been already years since the world of mainstream management realized agile is not just a tree-hugging bandwagon – assuming we don’t really need to hug more trees to solve a bunch of real problems – and this blogpost doesn’t have the aim to show you anything unexpected. But still I have been beating the agile track since 2003 and it is so rewarding to see Forbes acknowledge the value of a path that, well… was mine too.
Ad maiora.