Corporations in specific and large organizations in general are managed with intricate planning processes – from short-term quarterly reports to long-term projections. Success and failure and rewards associated therewith are based on the degree of congruency between plan and achievement thereof. The underlying assumption is that the degree of environmental change is either negligible or sufficiently factored in, and therefor acting according to plan is the best behavior. Agile makes the assumption, that continuous change is the standard and the appropriate way to deal with it is to shorten the planning period and act in a more adaptive mode. Agile IT strives to adapt in the shortest possible time, leading to daily deployments, them being governed by their presumed contribution to business value and not by planned requirements.
The presentation is a summary of experiences and thoughts from one of the largest and most successful e-commerce apps in Germany – DB Navigator.