Seizing the digital opportunity with agility

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(Image: Stockfresh)

18 November 2016

A key factor in the digital disruption/digital transformation balance is speed.

The speed at which organisations can respond to, or go to, markets is dependent now, not only IT infrastructures, but also on the ability of business units to take advantage.

Agile manifesto

As far back as the publication of the paper “Manifesto for Agile Software Development” in 2001, expectations have grown for the potentially positive impact of such approaches for business, as well as IT. While originally envisaged as a new way to deliver software developments faster, soon it became a methodology for infrastructure and service management too. Now business units are being urged to take the lessons on board to allow them to move at the speed of IT, to take advantage of the new levels of service and delivery now possible from platforms, data centres and service providers.

Agile is coming full circle to its roots in business management. Although “agile” has become a popular buzzword in software development, Dave Sharrock, vice president of professional services at consulting firm Agile42, says agile processes have always been used in business, but they had not been clearly defined before.

“Once you have an agile software development organisation, you automatically start putting pressure on other parts of the organisation to work in a similar way [to agile].”

Lean, the quality-oriented production management method that is a forerunner of agile, and agile tenets were promoted back in the 1970s by W Edwards Deming, says Nathan Slippen, chief US technologist for agile consulting firm Valtech.

“When you look at the tenets [of agile], they can be applied at different levels within an enterprise,” such as reducing and eliminating waste and figuring out ways to make processes more transparent, he says — both foundational tenets of Lean.

Noble goal
The use of agile practices beyond just software development is a noble goal. If done successfully, businesses can apply the same concepts of collaboration and flexibility for business benefits that agile provides in software development. But agile practice requires a new way of thinking, and participants in the process must be able to accommodate changes to how things have always been done.

However, to begin the agile journey for business, IT must be able to provide a strong, highly available, resilient and scalable infrastructure.

TechFire, in association with Sungard Availability Services, will look at what agile means in the data centre, with a focus on intelligence in automation and orchestration, to bring about the agile services that will power smarter business.

In the age of Uber and AirBnB where start-ups can be disruptive upstarts, understanding how to harness agile services, can mean the difference between merely competing and succeeding.

The briefing is a free event, but registration is required.

www.techfire.ie

 

 

TechCentral Reporters and IDG News Service

 

 


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