We are developing a wiki with our thoughts on Agile. Please go here. We started a blog called Agile & Business.

We also have posted a list of Lean-Agile Resources.

Agile is all about delivering business value. Agile is a way of getting a lot more business value out of your dollar invested in projects. Agile is both a wonderfully simple and a perplexingly involved.

Agile recognizes that software is developed by people in a team (what a wonderfully original but necessary insight). And not developed by a process or by tools. So, it treats people right, recognizing their greatness and their weaknesses. It recognizes that creativity and learning will make the project successful. And these common-sense insights are keys to its success.

Most of the experience in using Agile is with IT projects, but Scrum (one might call this the project management layer of Agile) is also very useful with non-IT projects as well. (The main difference is to re-define "potentially shippable software" to make sense for the given non-IT project.)

Does Agile have to be implemented perfectly? No. It is simple to implement, in a way. But the value received is generally in proportion to the rigor and effort in implementing Agile. For all clients we have worked with, Agile implicitly involves some major organizational changes. Get a coach; get the best coach you can find and afford.

In our opinion, Scrum is the place to start with Agile. It puts in place a method for the business and IT sides to collaborate. It provides a way to focus on achieving business value. It controls the project. It releases a substantial portion of the team's energy and allows the team to evolve toward better Agile practices (eg, better engineering practices) at a pace that makes sense for the team and the project, and makes sense in the context of your organization.

After starting with Scrum, you should start thinking about implementing other Agile practices. See Extreme Programming, Rapid Planning, etc., etc.

In simple terms, there are two known successful ways of implementing Agile:

Agile is strong and resistant to your mis-use. But it is a great opportunity to improve your firm's capabilities and you can screw it up. Don't waste the opportunity. Don't let it be just "the flavor of the month". Do it right -- as much as you possibly can.

Regards, Joe