I'm a frustrated agilist: I know alot about agile, I can talk a good agile talk, and I've even given a couple "Agile Talks". But I don't do agile. Why? There aren't many agile employers out their and trying to "sell" agile to established software team is both hard work and risky - I know because I've just tried and (sort of ) failed.
Part of the problem is, I think, that in these early stages of agile we're still learning how to DO agile well. In doing so we've gotten good at preaching to the converted, and good at selling to the innovators in the early market, but we've not figured out how to "sell" to the more cautious mainstream market. If you look at the agile literature the bulk of it is aimed at agile practitioners. Only Craig Larmen's "managers guide" and Demarco and Lister's "waltzing" books stand out as being aimed at selling agile/iterative/incremental methodologies.
So, I've setup a new "Selling Agile" yahoo group: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/SellingAgile/ where I hope that we can learn together how to better "sell" agile philosophies and practices to "them" - the non-agilists. In doing so I hope we'll learn something useful [and perhaps help find me do something about my frustrations].
So, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, join me at http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/SellingAgile/.
I'll try to kick off some converstation in a day or so, once numbers are up.
Clarke Ching
