The Agile Enterprise

For most people this looks like a very easy question: in 2001, when the Agile Manifesto was published. The first comment to this is that the "Agile Manifesto" is in fact the manifesto for Agile software development and while it is very important in the Agile history it is not the beginning.

Like many other discoveries "Agile" was originally a byproduct of military advantage. The first mention of an Agile approach is a study from the United States Department of Defense in late 50s aiming at finding ways to adapt military supplies to the specifics of war zones. It was the start of the Agile Manufacturing, and in my opinion manufacturing is still ahead in terms of agility. 

In the big scheme of things, like history, software development is a new topic. People "uncovered better ways" of doing it for millenia. Since we were hunters there were people that thought "out of the box" even when there was no such thing as a box :). The difference was the rate of change, thousands or even hundreds of years ago the society was pretty conservative and "new ways" were considered dangerous and sometimes crazy.There was no need for change as it is today.

For many newcomers Agile, the new kid on the block, started in 2001 when the manifesto for agile software development was published. While it is true that the manifesto had a significant contribution, there is a history of 'out f the box' thinking that's is good to be know, to learn from the past mistakes and achieve the ultimate goal of the Agile Enterprise: responding fast to market changes in an efficient and effective manner. I believe that it is time that Lean and Six Sigma, merged in a a single discipline at the same time as the publication of the manifesto, joins Agile becoming the foundation of modern products and services delivery frameworks.

I believe that a combined history of Agile, Lean and Six Sigma is more than a lessons learned exercise, it is a recognition of the contribution of  previous generations  Instead of demonising everything that was done before 2001 we should retain the knowledge and learn from their mistakes but also from their achievements.

"We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours."

I see many Agile implementations reinventing the wheel and making the same mistakes that my generation made. I believe that the best support for Agile should come from practitioners sharing their failures rather than spin doctors presenting Agile as a silver bullet. 

I believe that the beauty of Agile is the journey towards unknown, in the process uncovering better ways of developing products by doing it and helping others do it. Agile is not limited to software development and history shows that it started in manufacturing long before the Manifesto. 

It is not the result of research or the product of very intelligent people but rather a response to a fundamental change in the consumer behaviour, with more informed and savvy users where time to market become as important as quality.