Chapter 2

Enterprise Agility

In the previous chapter, we learned how software development and knowledge work differs from operations in traditional industries like construction and manufacturing. Because it deals in domains of uncertainty and faces accelerating change, software development is a way of working that is more akin to ecosystems and organisms than machines.

Early business thinkers devised theories that helped organizations optimize for resource utilization and reduce per-unit costs by following carefully devised plans. The Agile Manifesto expresses a different way of thinking that optimizes for emergence and the inherent uncertainty in the work we do. Although originally meant as a way to help improve how software is written, the ...

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