"Development is about delivering value through the proper management of projects; governance is about managing portfolio resources and funding the right projects at the right time."
- William B. Walton, Guest Editor
Planning and Budgeting Will Become More Agile
Agile methods will be extended to strategic thinking, planning, and budgeting. Development methods and IT governance processes need to operate at the organizational clock speed. More organizations will implement planning and budgeting processes that fully support an incremental, iterative development model.
The Legacy Is Too Powerful
Traditional planning and budgeting processes are unlikely to change significantly. For most organizations, the legacy and artifacts of the annual planning and budgeting cycle are too powerful and persistent. Agile development methods will need to continually accommodate the reporting requirements of the linear management tradition.
Next Issue
Enterprise Architecture: Best Practices?
Guest Editor: Mike Rosen
Whether they're driven by the need for business-IT alignment, the spread of service-oriented architectures, or other factors, enterprise architecture (EA) programs are clearly proliferating. In next month's Cutter IT Journal, you'll see how Subaru's EA effort transformed a maze of overlapping applications and unsupported technology platforms into a simple, flexible IT environment that keeps pace with changing business needs. You'll learn how architects can get agile developers to actually heed their advice — rather than shunning them. And you'll discover an agile "middle path" that can help you avoid the extremes of perfection and chaos in your own EA efforts. Join us next month for a lively discussion of the best practices that lead to EA success.
Not all organizations are in agreement about the critical nature of strategy, planning, and budgeting in an agile business environment. Applying traditional approaches for the sake of meeting objectives oftentimes results in misdirected managerial attention, the stifling of innovation and creativity, and the inability to focus on new priorities. How can strategy, planning, and budgeting processes be redefined to better support agile methods? This inspiring debate replete with best practices and guidelines for meeting the dynamic business objectives of an agile organization.
