Defining Agile SCM: Past, Present & Future (2008)

that particular subject). Several SCM tool vendors strarted to enter the SCM+Agile arena at that time and offered whitepapers and marketing geared towards an Agile audience. Since 2005, interest in "Agile" SCM has been growing a bit more quickly, no doubt due to the popularity of the "Agile" buzzword becoming more mainstream and making its way into more organizations and SCM tools marketing. 

Also in 2005, the greater project management community began to build momentum toward embracing Agile techniques and values, and their manifesto-like Declaration of Interdependence (DOI) was born. Since software CM has close ties with both project management and development, the DOI helped strengthen connections between CM with agile and project management, and Scrum is quickly becoming the most widely adopted Agile method. Increased economic trends towards globalization have also increased the focus on collaboration & feedback across geographically dispersed sites. And the subject of 'scaling' agile methods become the most popular in the Agile community during 2005 and 2006. So it is clear that much more "Agile SCM" history no doubt remains to be written.

What is Agile SCM?
Our definition of Agile SCM has not changed dramatically over the past 5 years. It is more than just CM for an Agile project, and encompasses attaining agility within the CM process itself. In addition to enabling an Agile project environment, true Agile CM requires taking on an Agile mind-set embodied by the Agile manifesto, applying that with Lean principles and techniques (including Theory of Constraints, and even parts of Six Sigma) and combining it with the principles and discipline of configuration management. The challenge of Agile CM comes when attempting to reconcile apparent conflict between Agile/Lean values and principles with CM principles and discipline. A synergistic balance must be achieved that attains the goals of both without compromising the values of either one.

"Agile" names a family of methods (rather than one particular method), that includes Feature-Driven Development (FDD), Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), Crystal Clear, DSDM, and others. Some of the various agile methods have very significant differences, but they all share the common values and principles of the Agile manifesto. Very often people use "Agile" as a synonym for XP and/or think that all agile methods are more-or-less like XP (because XP is what they typically hear the most about, and often has the most "attitude" to go with it). FDD and XP for example are markedly different, yet both share the values and principles espoused by the Agile Manifesto.

In addition to holding common "Agile" values and principles, much of the theory and application behind Agile methods has its roots in the principles and techniques of Lean Production and the Theory of Constraints or TOC (including Critical Chain). These days, Six Sigma has fashioned a "merger" with Lean called (surprise) "Lean Six Sigma" (or just "Lean Sigma") that has paved the way for certain aspects of Six Sigma to "leak into" what it means for "CM" to be Agile.

Agile SCM is not CM-Lite!
The basic CM principles are the same. Some new principles/tenets are added to create new requirements, and a resulting new "style" to  go with it in order to match projects having those additional requirements. There can even be a (more or less) common "core" set of practices, but the way they are instantiated and the additional practices and techniques and mind-set still create a different result. One size does not fit all kinds of projects. Just because a core set of principles may be the same doesn't mean everything else about it is.

To reiterate: Agile SCM takes nothing away from