Balancing Agile Innovation, Business Concerns

by Jens Coldewey

Last year, I started introducing agile development to a highly innovative company. They are world-market leaders in their domain, and it's basically their technical expertise they hold responsible for their position. As I usually do, I started by teaching them agile planning and estimation techniques, and they seemed to be quite happy with them -- except the lead for the team that was responsible for the innovative core of the system. "This looks quite good," he said as he approached me after the first planning session, "but where is the time we need for research? You see, we are 'research and development,' and all we were talking about just now was 'development.' " I answered something along the lines that their velocity still leaves enough time for unplanned research, but he seemed to be more satisfied with my answer than I was. Agile development should point the way out of the process problem, but as I was explaining it, it seemed to me more like tweaking the planning process.

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Balancing Agile Innovation, Business ConcernsThu Jun 12 08:20:13 CDT 2008