The Simple Business Case for Agile

This presentation explains the benefits of adopting agile development methods, in terms that a businessperson will understand and value: the top line, the bottom line, ROI, risk, and cash flow. This overview is perfect for business leaders who want to know what agile is about. It is also ideal for those who need to convey the benefits of agile methods to the business leaders of their organizations.

The Top Line (Revenue)
We will examine how agile practices inherently uncover and deliver more value, which translates into more revenue.

The Bottom Line (Profit)
Revenue minus cost is profit. This presentation describes concrete ways that agile practices reduce development costs, further increasing profit.

Return on Investment (ROI)
How much does the business have to put into a project and how much does it get back out? Agile projects deliver dramatically better ROI. We will examine some hard numbers that may surprise even experienced agilistas.

Risk
Software projects are full of risk: the risk of building the wrong thing, technology risk, budget risk, and the risk of losing key customers or key contributors. Agile practices act like insurance, reducing all of these.

Cash Flow
Cash flow problems can quickly kill even a profitable business. We will explain why agile projects have significantly better cash flows than traditional software projects.

The session will combine theory, personal experience, and hard data. To keep things fun, we will play "MBA Buzzword Bingo" during the presentation.

This class is available in the following formats: