We are going to traverse the long and winding history of Agile at Yahoo! – beginning with the period just prior to the introduction of Agile over 5 years ago, to its current (and unfinished) state – all from the viewpoint of the Agilista in the trenches. Whether the adoption is driven from the top down or bottom up, progress hasn’t always been in a straight path. We hope that the experiences we share will provide valuable insight for others in their roll-out of Agile in the enterprise, and how the DNA of Agile can survive and even thrive in both supportive and challenging circumstances.

Agile adoption initiatives succeed and fail. There is no agreement on why they do so. The current focus for scaling Agile seems to be on modifying existing Agile practices, adding new ones, and getting the right toolset installed. I’ve come to believe that the main reason for the success of any Agile adoption effort are the individuals, their skills and their personalities. All other aspects of Agile are of secondary importance.

In this talk I will share several individual skills and mental models that are necessary for successful scaling.

This stimulating talk starts by exploring the popular Technology Adoption Lifecycle, and how it relates to agile adoption. Next Ahmed illustrates how to practically “cross the chasm” between project-level and enterprise-wide agile adoption initiatives using a value-based roadmap. The roadmap, which consists of five steps (Collaborative, Evolutionary, Integrated, Adaptive, & Encompassing), is a result of 4 years of research and industry experience. Participants will see how to create their own value-based agile roadmaps as well as discuss key concepts related to enterprise agile adoption.