Transforming ITIL to Agile

It's just dawned on me that Agile development won't work if it's only something the dev group is doing. It has to be part of how the whole operation. As an example, you can't have product managers going through a long waterfall process to create a 90 page PRD to be handed to the Agile guys. The PRD won't match up with the Agile process. The PMs have to get with the Agile program if Agile is going to be successful. Even if everyone approves of dev doing Agile, and there is no resistance to it, Agile won't be fully successful unless it's supported by the company. Here's a cool video that explains a successful implementation of Agile supported by Jira.

Automating Product Management with Jira

I've also made the leap lately that IT should look to embrace Agile techniques. I'd say most IT is "agile" in that it needs to step pretty quick to keep up with the business demands, IT needs to match velocities with the business demands. ITIL helps with this but some operations make ITIL a waterfall approach. What's needed is to start binding in Agile process. Here's a nice write up on it.

Agile & ITIL in IT