In my presentation for Agile Tour 2009 in Montreal, I will explore how we can elevate Agile to the business solution level. Agile shines in software development, but should it stop there? I had the opportunity to push Agile beyond its comfort zone.

At first it involved including purchased products, or make-or-buy decisions, in the Agile development process. While doing that, I noticed that we had to separate effort from cost. Originally, work time (or effort) is the only "cost" in Agile. But when we purchase a COTS (component off the shelf) as part of the solution for example, the relationship between cost and effort becomes insufficient. I solved this by attaching to work items a cost tag that is independent from effort. With this simple extension, we elevate Agile from software development level to software solution level.

In subsequent projects, I wanted Agile to encompass the entire project. The project can for example require adjusting business processes, marketing services and products, deploying software products, training people, and yes, developing software. However, work items that do not pertain to software products require more extensions to reflect these characteristics. The demonstration of work done, for example, is not as obvious as for a product feature. The results of non-product work items are less tangible and are sometimes observable only at later iterations. A marketing work item (shown below with a Scrum-style story index card) is a good example. Part of the cost ($3000) does not depend on the effort (50 hours), and part of the demonstration of "done" will only appear in later iterations when feedback can be measured. The capability of taking any value-producing activity into account, and not only product features, brings Agile to the business solution level.

Elevating Agile beyond software development is not just about expanding existing frameworks. It's first and foremost a question of mindset. Indeed still now Agile is used, introduced, and promoted essentially by software developers, who have a bias for diving headfirst into software development and neglect looking at a broader - and better - approach to the solution. Exposing Agile developers to business will expand their view and help elevate Agile to the business solution level.