The Use of Agile Methods by the Entrepreneur

Innovation through experimentation is the primary raw material from which business value is created today. Innovation is a unique differentiator manifesting itself as a competitive advantage throughout the product life cycle. Experimentation has become sufficiently inexpensive to enable its aggressive use as the key driver of innovation.
This presentation takes the view that experimentation is more valuable to the entrepreneur than to the Agilist. By virtue of the short development sprints, it provides a “firewall” around the risk inherent in experimentation. It enables the entrepreneur to validate new and untested concepts on the bi-weekly iteration boundary.
The pursuit of innovation through experimentation based on Agile methods can be done in a number of ways by an established vendor who “owns” the development and test resources for so doing. To the small entrepreneur who operates on a shoe string and a prayer, contract development based on Agile principles is an excellent way to substitute variable engineering costs for fixed costs. These days one can do so without possessing any technical software expertise in-house.
Rather than fitting Agile into a rigid business design, one can actually develop new business designs based on the flexibility of Agile. In particular, Sutherland’s money-for-nothing approach to contracting enables both the entrepreneur and the outsourcer to fully benefit from the flexibility of Agile. In fact, this approach opens the door for Agile to become a low-cost factor in our techno-economic system.
Whether you are an entrepreneur, an intrepreneur or a venture capitalist, Agile methods are relevant to you in two ways. By adopting Agile you will be able to reconfigure your business in a fast manner. Conversely, you might be subject to a market disruption by a competitor that adopts Agile. Either way, this presentation will brief you on what you need to know and suggest actionable insights you should consider.

Sebastian Hassinger has worked in the IT industry for over twenty five years in large firms and as an entrepreneur. He has founded two Internet Service Providers, helped launched several other startups, and held senior strategy and business development roles with IBM, Oracle and Apple. He holds MBAs from Columbia University and London Business School, is a published author and holds over a dozen software and business model patents.

Israel Gat is recognized as the architect of the Agile transformation at BMC Software. Under his leadership, BMC software development increased Scrum users from zero to 1,000 in four years. His executive career has spanned top technology companies, including IBM, Microsoft, Digital and EMC. He led the development of products such as BMC Performance Manager and Microsoft Operations Manager, enabling the two companies to move on to the next generation of system management technology. Israel is also well versed in growing smaller companies and has held advisory and venture capital positions for companies in new, high-growth markets.
Israel is currently focusing on enterprise level Agile deployments. His activities in this space include consulting on R&D transformation, coaching executives on how to implement Agile, and developing business designs that take full advantage of Agile methods.
Israel has a Ph.D. in Computer Sciences from the Israeli Institute of Technology and an MBA from Clark University. In addition to publishing with the Cutter Consortium, he posts frequently in The Agile Executive http://theagileexecutive.com/. Israel can be reached at isrgat@gmail.com.
Cost: Free
Contact: www.AgileAustin.org or info@AgileAustin.org
Proof of Attendance forms will be provided for PMI (PDU), ASQ (RU) and NPDM (PDH) re-certifications