The expanding scale and scope of Agile

Here's an informative webcast on the scalability of Agile development/project methodologies:



What's most informative about this video, is the underlying acknowledgement for the need to scale Agile methods to larger, even enterprise wide organizational levels. Much of the reason for the success of methodologies such as eXtreme and Scrum was that it was employed in mostly small, co-located teams, which allows for the facilitation of self-organization and governance, as well as close interaction with stakeholders.

But many projects and IT initiatives have expanded throughout the enterprise, which have caused the need to adopt a more centralized, process driven methodology. A recently published book, titled The Enterprise and Scrum is attempting to address this issue, and has had mixed reviews on Amazon and lukewarm acceptance within the Agile community, at least as I've seen it.

Likewise, the Project Management Institute specifically via the PMBOK, has been criticized for being too centralized and process heavy, and not being "Agile" enough. While good for industries such as defence, aerospace, construction and other large infrastructure projects, it is not agile enough for software, Internet and other fast paced high tech industries.

What I think will happen, or should happen, is a merging of techniques from process heavy methodologies such as PMBOK, CMMI, etc. with Agile, into a more flexible, adaptive methodology, that can still be systematically scaled and centralized as needed.