Once again, thanks for this post and for translating for my benefit. I wish I could read your original post. I miss the emotion and passion which I sense when I listen to you in person.

Anyway, here are some responses based on what I read above:

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From your blog – ” That is, when we talk about agile methods, even though we are referring to the Agile software development methods, there are a lot of other concepts and philosophies that we are implicitly talking about (because they are very closely related).”

and

“So when I say that other departments of companies could be “agile”, I am not suggesting that they work with Agile software development – which would make no sense – but that they use the same concepts of leadership, self-organizing teams working in a participatory environment, based on trust and cooperation, making a better effort to understand who are their “users” and what are their needs, create visions for their products and departments (that would help them make better decisions) and so on”

Yes you are absolutely right. Let’s take some of these concepts and philosophies:

1. AGILE MANIFESTO- The (left hand side of the) Agile Manifesto works very well for business teams (with some modification)

Individuals and Interactions
Incremental Business Value (not working software)
Customer Collaboration
Responding to Change

2. I would also add a few more:

- Limited Work In Progress (this is going to be a great challenge for business teams who love to work on several projects at the same time!!!!)

- Visualization (”Imagine how transparent and organized would be if the HR team had a big Kanban board in their room showing the activities, progress and their bottlenecks?)

- Daily Huddles

- Retrospectives

- Self Organization

I am sure you and your friends can come up with more!!

Just talk to the business and keep the channels open!

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Next you talk about reading material on this subject (Agile for Business Teams) –

“I think that this may not happen because much of the material and examples available on these subjects nowadays are formatted for people related to software development. Yes, there are books such as those of Ricardo Semler who are categorized in bookstores as “Business”, but I don’t see much business people really interested in these subjects. Why is that?”

I would respond that the most of the Agile / Scrum principles and concepts came from the business world. One such reading material is “The New New Product Development Game” – by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka (I have emailed this article to you) (Harvard Business Review Jan 1986) where they talk about “Moving the Scrum Downfield). There are several other good books and articles that one can refer to. I will send you my list.

All the best with this!! It is really exciting and interesting to see what else is happening in business.

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Finally, you speak about next steps:

“It’s time to finish with this “fork” between companies’ agile communities and the other departments. In Agile adoptions we frequently see after some time two totally different companies working within one. We must bring people from other areas and other hierarchical levels to the conferences and our world and show them these ideas. I will love the day that it will be possible to go to an Agile Conference and talk not only to software people but also HR managers, VPs of Marketing and other guys who are not in the development department; or else when we can find in user group meetings not only the “agilists” but also managers, human resources analysts, accountants and so on.

And now, where do we start?”

YES!! I AGREE. Again you are correct.

I actually believe there are teams – just teams.. no business or IT teams, just teams. We need to get more attention from other players from other teams and similarly we need to provide them our attention.

IT WORKS BOTH WAYS!!

So let’s engage them in our conversation, discussions and meetings and let us participate in their meetings.

Re attending conferences, Why don’t we invite a few businessmen, managers, VPs and Executives to the Agile Brazil conference and ask them for feedback. I think that can be an excellent way to start the dialogue.

Re your question, “Where do we start?” – All we need to do is START! and the collaboration you speak of will happen.

Don’t you agree?

So lets all START…

See you soon in SFO and lets continue our dialogue!

Cheers
Siraj
Washington DC

I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of taking Lean and Agile to the world of business. I am sure you and your friends will also enjoy this experience. Lets talk more and write more.

Best wishes and happy new year!
Siraj