Adopting Agile is not enough

Enterprises that have adopted Agile are facing two hard realities: a) it is difficult to scale the benefits accrued from Agile and many times even to sustain them, and b) despite adopting Agile, it has made minimal or no difference to the enterprise's ability to deal with the disruptions arising from fast-paced change.

What these enterprises are lacking is a greater level of agility. Adopting Agile practices and methodologies, and even scaling them, does not increase agility. At the enterprise level, it is agility that matters most, not Agile. This is because agility encompasses a set of enterprise-level capabilities while Agile, though based on values and principles, is oriented toward software delivery. Enhancing agility at enterprise level usually requires profound changes across the enterprise. The rest of this book is devoted to the "why," "what," and "how" of achieving enhanced agility.