Agile fancies itself as the ultimate "disruptive influence," tossing aside decades of entrenched processes and methodologies. The term "disruptive technology" comes from Dr. Clayton Christensen, in his book, "The Innovator's Dilemma." If the book is to believed--and it was voted as one of the five most influential business books of all time by "The Economist--then disruption comes to every market, always. So what will disruption look like to Agile? Originally presented at Agilepalooza Austin, these slides accompanies remarks by Russ Fletcher, Managing Director of Davisbase Consulting. Fletcher suggests two areas of concern for agilists--narrow market definition and Agile "purists."

1. The Agile dilemma
How Disruption May Come to the
Ultimate Disruptive Influence
Agilepalooza, December 2013
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

2. PresenteR
•
Russ Fletcher
Vice President
Federal Agile Practice Manager
Davisbase Consulting
•
20+ years of IT management experience
•
Agile coach and trainer of 1000’s of students over the
past four years
•
Practice leader for Agile adoption in US federal government
•
BS, MIT; MBA, Brigham Young University
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

3. agile evangelism
(…this is my
kitchen!)
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

4. Topics for today
•
Concept of successful business disruption
•
How Agile provided a disruption
•
Why that should be a concern for the Agile community
•
Where do we go from here?
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

5. dr. clayton Christensen
•
Professor, Harvard Business School
•
Five-time recipient of the McKinsey Award, given each year
to the two best articles in the Harvard Business Review
•
Rated top “thinker” in the world in 2013 and 2011,
according to Thinkers50, a global ranking of management
thinkers published every two years
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

6. the innovator’s dilemma
•
Global Business Book award as best business book on
1997
•
In 2011 voted by The Economist as one of the six most
important business books ever written
•
Introduced the concept of “disruptive technology”
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

7. disruptive technology
“Disruptive innovation describes a process by which a product
or service takes root initially in simple applications at the
bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market,
eventually displacing established competitors.”
www.claytonchristensen.com
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

8. Performance Measure
effects of disruption
Existing Market
Leader
Actual Needs
of Market
Disruptive Market
Entrant
Time
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

9. example
Functionality
Point-and-Shoot
Cameras
Digital
Photography
Cameras on
Cell Phones
Time
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

10. repeated pattern
•
Large steel mills disrupted by “mini mills”
•
Steam-and-pulley front loaders disrupted by hydraulics
•
Enterprise software vendors disrupted by open source
•
The repeated and ongoing disruption in computer storage
•
Hard drives to floppy disks to thumb drives to cloud
to ...?
•
“...the fruit flies of the business world...”
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

11. CHRISTENSEN’S CONCLUSION
Companies and technologies that
do not pay attention to
disruptive influences
are bound to be damaged or
replaced by those influences.
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

12. So what’s the big deal?
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

13. Problem #1: Market definition
•
Why did no railroad companies become airline companies?
•
•
They defined themselves as railroad companies, instead
of transportation companies
What market does Agile serve?
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

14. problem #2: purists
•
Why do people rigidly adhere to methodologies even
when they know that there are better options?
•
“You’re not Agile if you don’t ___________.”
•
Scrum purists: no “Scrum-but...”
•
Lean purists
•
XP purists
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

15. agile disruption
???
Performance Measure
CMMI
RUP
ITIL
EVM
SAFe
Waterfall
Lean SW Dev.
XP
Scrum
Lean principles
Kanban?
Time
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

16. AGILE VS. PROJECT MANAGEMENT
???
Performance Measure
PMBOK v.5
PMBOK v.4
PMBOK v.3
PMBOK v.2
???
PMBOK v.1
ICAgile
PMI-ACP
CSM
Scrum
Time
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

17. what’s next for agile?
•
Distributed open source teams?
•
Expand beyond software development?
•
Radical Management, by Stephen Denning
•
The self-organizing corporation? The flash-mob business?
•
Rewrite/adapt/extend the Manifesto?
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

18. spiritual agile manifesto
We are uncovering better ways of becoming spiritual
by living that way and helpings other to live that way too.
Through our work we have come to value...
People and families over programs and sermons
Actual service over good intentions
Caring for the poor over charitable donations
Adapting our doctrine over blind faith
While there is value to the items on the right,
we value the items on the left more.
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

19. Your Call To Action
‣
Don’t get trapped as a purist
‣
Expand your knowledge horizon
beyond your particular flavor of
Agile
‣
Broaden the market definition
‣
Inspect and adapt always. In other
words...
Evolve or die by disruption!
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
www.davisbase.com @davisbase

20. THANK YOU!
STAY CONNECTED!
•www.davisbase.com
:: 877-DAVIS-10
•
@davisbase
•
Davisbase Consulting
•#BecomingAgile
- Blog
- Webinar Series
- Newsletter
•Presenter
Name
russ.fletcher@davisbase.com
© 2013 Davisbase Consulting, LLC
Now is the time for questions!
Now is the time for questions!
Remember, any unanswered questions will be
captured and responses provided online.
www.davisbase.com @davisbase