Beyond Mainstream Adoption: From Agile Software Development to Agile Organizational Change

The agile paradigm is now a mainstream approach to software development, with Scrum emerging as the dominant methodology in the field. The rapid diffusion of the approach is an indicator of its current value to organizations but further gains seem possible. One major step would be the use of the agile approach in all organizational activity. This opportunity has always been part of the Scrum philosophy but few have attempted to put it into practice so far. The purpose of this paper is to consider what is involved, proposing a hierarchical Scrum model to make it suitable for such wider use. The proposal draws on established ideas from both Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) and Deming's Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle. The new model also has the potential to enhance the basic agile development process for software.