Editor's note
Sometimes, it's really hard to be the earliest or the first. That's definitely the case with the Agile development model. When the Agile Manifesto was written over 16 years ago now, it was seen as fresh, modern and, most of all, doable. All these years later, it's looking a bit ragged and worn, and it's become clear it's not easily doable, at least at scale.
Last year, at Agile2016, frustrations with Agile's status caused some practitioners to go so far as to suggest it needed a new name. This year, at Agile2017 in Orlando, the frustrations continued but, this time, with a focus on the ways Agile has been diluted and eclipsed. The answers this year centered on a fresh start. Bring your Agile teams back to what they do best -- working together to solve a problem -- and try as hard as you can to get out of their way.
Now, instead of calling teams out for not doing Agile "the right way," companies were given marching orders to make Agile their own. And that means working with DevOps teams. After all, Dave West, CEO of Scrum.org, calls Agile and DevOps "salt and pepper because you can't have one without the other."
So, if you need a fresh view of Agile to ramp up your enterprise and your enthusiasm, look no further than what experts, practitioners and technologists suggest in order to make Agile work for you. Whether it's test automation, software design or empowering leadership, tried-and-true answers and advice from for the Agile development model are at hand.
1Make Agile work for you
At Agile2017, discussion turned to dealing with today's Agile development model environment. Working with DevOps teams seems to be an essential goal for making Agile work. This section includes advice on using Agile for software design, mainframe testing, automation and reducing technical debt.