The Agile Elevator Speech

Okay… so you find yourself in the elevator with your CEO. She asks about the agile project your team is piloting. She wants to know what this agile stuff is all about. You have 30 seconds... go!

You begin by stating that agile is basically three things: a set of engineering best practices that allow for rapid delivery of high-quality software, a project management process that encourages frequent inspection and adaptation, and a leadership philosophy that encourages team work and accountability.

You go on to say that success in today's economy requires us to respond quickly to changing market conditions. Agile processes allow our teams to meet the changing demands of their customers while creating environments where top developers want to work.

Your CEO is intrigued and invites you to walk to her next meeting. She wants to know more. Mission accomplished.

Comments

[Derek Mahlitz]

Awesome post!!! Thanks

[tom gilb]

I think this speech is an exaggeration!
Scrum is not an engineering method by any stretch of the imagination. I do not consider it to be a best practice, just a frequent one. What is your definition of best, what is it better than?
I doubt if it can deliver high quality software. But then I suppose you have a special definition of that? Does it include 99.98% Availability and is the measured anywhere? I suppose you mean less bugs than with no method? Frequent Inspection? Strange use of terms (see my book Software Inspection). I think you mean frequent incremental testing? Team work towards, what long term goals or burning stories? Accountability for what, meeting the critical top 10 stakeholder improvements? I doubt it. Top developer environments? If Scrum is their highest ambition level, then they do not get categorized by me as top.
Of course as a pep talk to fool some poor CEO for a short while, I suppose it might work! But as Lincoln said...

[Mike Cottmeyer]

I was using the word 'agile' as an umbrella term to describe the entire family of lightweight methods (Scrum, XP, Crystal, DSDM, etc.) not Scrum specifically.

Collectively I stand by the fact that these methods represent development best practice, project management process, and a leadership philosophy. Isolate any one of the agile methodologies and they will be lacking one or more of the components.

Check out some of my other posts on the site around simplicity and simple rules frameworks for a little more on how I think about agile and its role in software development.

http://blog.versionone.net/blog/2008/03/scrum-project-m.html
http://blog.versionone.net/blog/2008/03/strategy-as-sim.html
http://blog.versionone.net/blog/2008/03/simple-messages.html

Thanks for your post.

[matt gelbwaks]

Remember, CEOs are from Mars and CIOs are from Venus; respectfully. Your first two points talk to the technology and the discipline. Most CEOs have sloughed off their engineering background, if they had one, long before their elevator ride with you. Most likely, what they heard you say was:

"blah blah blah blah blah leadership blah blah ACCOUNTABILITY."

The CEO's job is all about accountability - to the board, to the share holders, to the public, to customers. There is also this malaise in the industry stemming from IT's general thought that it is a cost center that thinks it is a profit center.

When your CEO heard you say "Accountability" he/she probably suffered a minor palpitation that cause him to micro focus on your next statement before before he tuned out again.

Tomorrow morning, when you go in, talk more about accountability, fiscal and organizational; as well as "success in today's economy requires us to respond quickly to changing market conditions". Those will be the thoughts that will cause your CEO to increase your budget to allow you and your team to continue redoubling your honing of agile practices. The CEO wants to know what results will come out of the practices rather than what the practices are, and will be thrilled to find someone in his IT organization that understands that you exist for the business, rather than the other way around.

However, before you go up to the executive suite, be careful of what you wish for, because you may leave the new CIO.

[John]

Agile, Scrum, etc, they're all about: We don't have a plan and we really don't know what we're doing, but we have a general idea!!

It's like buzzword bingo, and to be honest, it's a joke and people who believe in it are probably the same folks who believed in Cleanroom.

If you can't plan what you're doing, execute on the plan, and factor in updates in a reasonable amount of time, all while following a repeatable process, then you have problems that agile isn't going to solve for you. Yes I see it used all the time, and the quality is only as good as your best firefighter. Until they burnout and quit. But who cares about Quality, right? After all, MS doesn't need it...

[Steve Lawrence]

I am surprised about the amount of negativity to the concept of scrum and agile- surely such ideas as risk reduction, client involvement (after all it is THEIR project), reduced time to market, reduced gold plating, flexibility to manage change- All projects change- accept it -don't bury yourself in administration of change requests. Other left field ideas such as team empowerment - they set the expectations rather than have them dictated - high team morale and a delivery focus. These summarise the basic tenets of Scrum and Agile and have been proven to be highly effective. I do admit the CEO probably did just pick up accountability - but if he is the sponsor - he is accountable - NOT the project team. Waterfall should stay with the building industry where it started. Or maybe NASA

[Glenn Andrew]

Hi Mike,

I just made a post on crafting an elevator speech. I use a three-step process that follows a problem/solution/referral method that works for virtually any situation. Perhaps you can give a a try and let me know how it works for you.

I appreciate your feedback.

Best regards,

Glenn Andrew
http://glennandrew.com/crafting-an-elevator-speech/