Gus Valen has been leading teams in the utilization of Agile Methodologies since 1999. Back when the ecommerce workflow was centered around a results driven “Waterfall” management style that required a project manager to follow the plan. Plans were built around requirements, but the requirements were changing, and changing rapidly, because the market was rapidly moving and evolving. Unfortunately, this often led to a lack of alignment between what the clients wanted and what the development team delivered. Innovation is defined as doing new things that add value. Doing new things is often uncertain and Agile provides an ideal framework to learn in a highly uncertain environment. This simplification of focus provides faster results, not to be confused with the outcome of Agile, which is speed. We don’t work faster to be agile; our agility allows us to work faster, make decisions quicker, and with more certainty. 

Agile forces teams to create short timeframes and focus on the priority outcome or answer.