P r i n c i p l e s o f A g i l e E n t e r p r i s e sShaping Today’s Technology Into Tomorrow’s Innovations7

Agile enterprises…

1. Prioritize with a pace layered application strategy.

2. Execute with a high level strategy.

3. Identify areas of opportunity.

4. Never build anything twice.

5. Harness the exponential pace of technology.

6. Create an enterprise-wide feedback culture.

7. Unmask innovation superheroes.

Even the most experienced Agile IT teams have a hard time keeping up with the rising demand for new business applications. When it comes to supporting these teams, Jeff Sutherland – co-creator of the widely adopted Scrum development methodology – says “it’s all about adaptability.” The problem is simple: Yesterday’s enterprise technology is too rigid to support today’s demands for new and improved business applications.

View this slideshow to learn how the world’s elite organizations maintain market leadership in highly competitive industries by embracing adaptability as a key growth enabler.

P r i n c i p l e s o f A g i l e E n t e r p r i s e sShaping Today’s Technology Into Tomorrow’s Innovations7

Prioritize with a pace layered application strategy.

Agile enterprises prioritize their systems by pace layers, or the speed at which they need to adapt. They don’t let Systems of Record (like ERP or CRM) get in the way of differentiating and innovative applications. While Systems of Record are vital to everyday business processes, they require substantially more resources to change. Agile enterprises take advantage of rapid application delivery frameworks to build new differentiating and innovating applications on top of their Systems of Record.

1

“Speed and agility have become a business mandate in our industry.”

Richard Warner, CIO, LV= Insurance

Execute with a high level strategy.

Agile enterprises acknowledge the Pareto Principle, wherein 80% of a project’s effects come from 20% of its causes. With this in mind, they start executing with high level requirements, knowing that feedback on each iteration will further shape their idea. Rather than getting caught up in the details of a new project, Agile enterprises start executing with a high level strategy and develop their concepts iteratively.

2

“There are a bunch of myths about innovation. A lot of innovation,

even radical innovation, is caused by small steps.”

Jeff Sutherland, co-creator of Scrum

Identify areas of opportunity.

Agile enterprises are resourceful in their pursuit of innovative applications that enable them to maintain their market leadership. They continuously renew value in past technology investments by extending existing Systems of Record with new user interfaces, built-in business logic, and augmented data structures that streamline and automate inefficient business processes. These enterprises don’t have the words ‘rip’ nor ‘replace’ in their vocabulary.

3

“Platform as a service is the next step in a long evolution of

advancements within application development.”

Eric Rawlings, CTO, Digital Risk LLC

Never build anything twice.

Agile enterprises are always on the hunt for development synergies that save time and resources. Sharing and re-using application components in a central and secure Enterprise App Store assures that time spent building new applications is time spent creating new business value – not reinventing the wheel. Agile enterprises spend their resources carefully; that means never building anything from scratch when someone else in the organization has already built it.

4

“We are under exponentially increasing pressure to be more cost

effective.”

Jim Winburn, CTO & Co-Founder, Acorn Applications LLC

Harness the exponential pace of technology.

The exponential speed of technological advancement reflects the compounding nature of innovation. Agile enterprises know this and utilize new technologies to make their own technology better, faster, smarter, and more adaptive. They build the pursuit of innovative technologies into their overall innovation process. Companies that fail to adopt new expertise and tooling ultimately fail to push their own technology forward at the rate their market requires.

5

“Waiting several years or even six months is no

longer acceptable from a business standpoint.”

Eric Rawlings, CTO, Digital Risk LLC

Create an enterprise-wide feedback culture.

Agile enterprises bring an iterative methodology to all of their projects. They create a feedback culture that rewards product owners with valuable insights and fosters cross-functional collaboration. These teams release early, and release often knowing that requirements and priorities will likely have changed by the time they’re ready for their next iteration (see Principle #2). The consistent capture of new feedback enables Agile enterprises to continuously adapt their systems and processes.

6

“Scrum is really taking over the way of working, not only in IT, but it’s starting to spread outside of IT.”

Jeff Sutherland, co-creator of Scrum

Unmask innovation superheroes.

There are members of every organization that hold expertise in multiple disciplines, demonstrating a propensity for technology as well as their particular business function. Agile enterprises know that this perspective has an advantage in conceptualizing and executing innovative applications. Whether they come from IT or business backgrounds, these ‘superheroes’ are recruited, conditioned, and tasked with turning innovative and differentiating ideas into reality.

7

“It’s a technical business analysis domain that allows us to build deep

functionality.”

Rod Willmott, Fast Track Innovation Director, LV= Insurance

Do you work for an Agile enterprise?

Ask yourself:1. Are our new differentiating and innovative applications held back by Systems of Record?2. Do we extensively document requirements prior to developing a new application?3. Does our IT team spend the majority of their time maintaining existing systems?4. Do our development teams work in siloes, building the same software over and over?5. Does my company’s competitors use more advanced technology than we do?6. Are our projects executed without transparency and broad stakeholder input?7. Do colleagues constantly come up with ‘work-arounds’ for technical inefficiencies?

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Executive On-demand Webinar

Harness Your Organization’s Agile Potential

Watch this executive on-demand event featuring Dr. Jeff Sutherland, co-creator of Scrum, and one of the founders of the Agile movement, as he discusses the evolution of Scrum, and how businesses are more quickly “going Agile” to propel innovation and market leadership.

You’ll learn how Scrum can enable your team to accelerate the process of innovation and about the tools and technologies that enhance Agile excellence in organizations of any size.

Mendix.com/SutherlandWebinar

Dr. Jeff Sutherland

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