7 Principles of Agile Enterprises

P r i n c i p l e s o f A g i l e E n te r p r i s e s
Shaping 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 s
Shaping 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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7 Principles of Agile Enterprises

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