Guest Editorial: Agile Beyond Software—In Search of Flexibility in a Wide Range of Innovation Projects and Industries
Mattia Bianchi, Giacomo Marzi, Marina Dabić
Abstract
The nine papers in this special section focus on new developments in agile software and reports on applications for its use. A key aspect for the extensive use of agile software is that it supports developers with coping with the growing uncertainty and turbulence in technological and market environments. Feedback and change are at the core of Agile for a dynamic, evolving, and organic, rather than static, predefined, and mechanistic development process advocated by waterfall management. To create timely, high-quality, cost-efficient, and innovative solutions, Agile developers organized in small, colocated, autonomous teams, build and test software in rapid iterative cycles, actively involving users to gather feedback, updating the project scope, and plan “on-the-fly,” using face-to-face communication as opposed to documentation. These papers contribute to the state-of-the-art of agile research by offering a rich, up-todate account of the dynamics occurring when expanding Agile into “not-just-software” contexts of the key challenges and perils related to the scaling and of the possible solutions to them.