When software development agility  is not considered as a trendy fashion to follow, but a pragmatic way to improve productivity and quality, it can give the best. Looking back to 2009, one interview of IBM’s VP Sue McKinney by DZone stands above other papers or interviews, by giving a clear and simple view on how to manage change to agile paradigm.

The approach is summarized in one single sentence:

Short, time box iterations with stakeholder feedback –working software.

This short slogan hides a much more complex plan to switch to agile. The (not secret, not new) success formula is, as usual, a mix, and a strong link between people management (especially grassroots and executives levels buy-in, momentum creation, stakeholder feedback), and technical best practices (continuous integration, automated testing to name few of them), under influence of one single major constraint: to deliver often and fast. Hence knowledge in the technical and people management fields are key, as the ability to acquire this knowledge fast if missing. This is what makes the difference between successful organizations and sterile ones.

As a result, IBM’s 25.000 people on 124 sites worldwide are moved from standard waterfall-ish paradigm to a more flexible one. Key recalls:

• technical practices are as important as people management ones, one can not work without the other,
• the switch to agile paradigm can be efficient despite non collocated teams, geographic distance, and large scale organizations.

Nothing new under the sun, but the fact that with the time derivation from simple targets (firm schedule, cost efficiency, quality) can be forgotten, and that there are proven solutions to solve the problems.