I’ll be speaking in January at the Phoenix Scrum User Group

I’m honored to be the featured speaker at the January 28, 2010 meeting of the Phoenix Scrum User Group.  I’ll be making a presentation called “Doing Agile Isn’t the Same as BEING Agile!”  The presentation is loosely based on my blog entry “Agile antipattern: Doing Agile!”  If you are in the Phoenix area please stop by on the evening of the 28th and introduce yourself.  The basic abstract for the presentation is below. Go to the Phoenix Scrum User Group home page for more details (should be updated soon).

Doing Agile Isn’t the Same as BEING Agile

People often say “We’re doing agile at my company.”  What does that really mean?  Unfortunately it usually means the organization has picked a small number of agile practices they attempt to do without really paying attention to the overall results.  If a company is “doing agile well” it may even mean they are doing as many agile practices as possible.  However, in practice there is a big difference between “doing agile” and “being agile!”  Companies BEING Agile perform better than companies doing agile.  They see higher morale among their employees.  They use Agile as a tool rather than a process.  Most importantly, being Agile means being devoted to the principles which drive success rather than hoping the practices will drive success.  Whether you are using XP, Scrum, AUP, Crystal or another agile methodology come learn the basic principles and how to internalize them so your team, organization or enterprise can BE agile rather than DO agile!